Rise Of Excalibur
by Dylan Millwood
Summary: Adopted from InFamous Shadow. Thrust into a new world with on his headband as a sign of his past, Naruto must now fight against the various factions that want the Witchblade for themselves alongside Masane, the newest bearer, using the mysterious power of another artifact known as Excalibur. All the while taking care of a little girl known as Rihoko
1. Chapter 1

The Hidden Leaf, once the most powerful village in the elemental nations now reduced to nothing but rubble and ruins with only two figures standing left.

"Come on Dobe, Let's see which one of us is the strongest once and for all!" The Seventeen year old know as Sasuke Uchiha shouted.

"Fine with me Teme! Its about time we finally put an end to this and its time that you paid for all of your crimes!" The Blond haired teen known as Naruto Uzumaki retorted back.

In what seemed like a flash Sasuke appeared behind Naruto and Proceeded to stab him in the back. Only for 'Naruto' to dispel in a poof of smoke to show a log. Sasuke quickly turned around and saw the real Naruto coming at him in hand with his signature move the Rasengan.

"RASENGAN!" Naruto shouted as he lunged at Sasuke only for the Uchiha to jump out of the way sending Naruto to collide with a wall reducing it to rubble in a single attack.

"Careful Dobe or you might hurt your _best friend._" Sasuke said mockingly.

"You're no friend of my mine! You've killed innocent people! You've killed Kakashi,Sakura, and countless more! No More it all ends here and now!" Naruto shouted with rage evident in his eyes as he closed them but then reopened them to show that he had entered sage mode.

"One more thing Sasuke, when all of this is done I promise you that you'll join your bastardchild clan!" Naruto said as Sasuke simple grinned.

"Fine have it your way _Naruto _I was going to kill you nice and quick, but know I want to see you beaten up knowing that you failed your friends and so that you beg me for death" Sasuke said as he activated his eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.

Naruto instantly jumped at Sasuke, but not before creating two clones which were taken care of quickly but not before leaving himself open to an attack from Naruto getting punched in the stomach with extreme force.

This cause Sasuke to be launched into a near by building which collapsed onto of him.

Naruto began to examine the pile of rubble that Sasuke was buried under know full well that this was far from over.

_"Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Technique!" _Shouted Sasuke as a giant dragon shaped fire ball exploded from the rubble and was sent Narutos way.

Naruto quickly jumped out of the way of the attack but was soon confronted by Sasuke who began to perform a series of attacks on Naruto who tried to block the assault but several attacks manage to land on him hitting his in the face rib and his right arm. However Naruto quickly caught a punch that Sasuke was sending towards him and began to reverse the roles on the attacks send towards the Uchiha a blaze of punches and kicks before they both shoot way from each other.

After the attacks both ninja landed apart for each other both breathing deeply clearly exhausted from their battle.

"Well dobe I see you've improved, but its not going to help you out anymore than our previous fights" Sasuke said as he wipe off some blood from his lip.

"You know something Sasuke, the problem you always had is that you could never admit that someone was your equal and it just ate you up inside that the _''dobe'',_the _"Dead-last"_ might just be more powerful than you am I right _teme_" Naruto said with a smirk on his face.

"Shut IT! Naruto!" Sasuke said as a dark aura began to shape around him forming his Susanoo which had the mouth of the armor changed to a beak shape, giving it an even more menacing look. The skin on the right arm and right hand had several plating's that give the appearance of the skin peeling off and the armor itself becomes more ghastly in appearance.

"_Well looks like he brought out the big guns, shall we Kurama?" _Naruto thought to himself before he heard a chuckle come from his mind.

"_**Let's wipe this little shit-stain clan off the face of the world world kit"**_ Kurama replied as a golden cloak began to envelop Naruto before he revealing the tailed beast mode in golden fiery form contrasting against Sasukes dark.

Then Sasuke's Susanno began to form a ball of energy known as the Chidori.

"Lets do this TEME!" Naruto said as a he shaped into Kurama, with some visible changes such as the seal spread across his body, and in that same instant he began to forming a tailed beast ball.

Soon both of the combatants moves were both charge up and they both had fires burning in their eyes Sasukes burned with the desire to finally kill the person who had been a pest to him once and for all. However Naruto's burned bright with the desire to avenge all of the lives ended by this monster and to finally put an end to the cursed Uchiha bloodline.

Then Sasuke's Susanno charged chidori in hand as Naruto waited patiently for his enemy to reach him.

As him however Naruto unleashed the demon ball resulting it a gigantic blast that overpowered Sasuke chidori, and destroyed his Susanno form, to which left him in a vulnerable state.

Taking advantage of this, Naruto sprung from his Kyuubi form, a tailed beast rasengan quickly forming in his in hand, as aiming towards the Uchiha.

Sasuke however quickly saw this and begun to form a black chidori similar to the one he had used to defeat Naruto at the valley of the end, confident that it would do so once more.

_"TAILED BEAST RASENGAN!"_ Naruto shouted as he jump towards Sasuke.

_"CHIDORI!"_ Sasuke shouted as both attacks collided.

When both of the attacks collided the results was very similar to their first clash 4 years ago only this time they were much more powerful and the results much dangerous as the black orb began to form now the ground only which the orb loomed over was now being torn apart as well were the buildings around the orb in a sort of black hole fashion.

Inside the orb it was now a clash of will power and determination as neither ninjas refused to give in.

_"No, I won't let Sasuke get away this time! Even if it Costs me my life I will Stop him!"_ Naruto thought as he drew upon more power from the causing his Rasengan to grow exponentially to the point where it completely overpowered Sasuke's Chidori.

"THIS ENDS NOW! SASUKE!" Naruto shouts as he rams his rasengan through Sasukes arm splitting and ripping apart bone and flesh as his rasengan shredded his torso, then finally reached its destination as Naruto struk Sasuke's head.

The result was the bloody end of The Uchiha clan once and for all.

However The orb that he was in was now entire its final stage he looked around and saw that everything was going white perhaps after all of his suffering in his life now he would be finally be free.

"Its over...Its finally...over..." Naruto said as he shut his eyes with a smile on his face as the orb exploded in a flash of white power.

* * *

In a blinding flash of light Naruto appears on a street his head throbbing barely being able to stand up.

"My Head...Dammit it wont stop hurting" Naruto said in a grunted pain filled voice at his head which wouldn't stop throbbing. However quickly he noticed the city in ruins and it got his mind off the pain, but then another more important thought ran though his head.

"Who..who am I" Naruto said as he attempted to figure out who he was and as he tried to remember but it came to no avail as his head was in too much pain for him to attempt to remember any clues as to he was or is.

Just then something fell down from his head and made a clank as it hit the ground.

Naruto looked at where the sound came from and saw what looked like a headband which he immediately bent down to pick it up.

when the headband was in his possession he began to examine it looking at the strange symbol on it which greatly resembled a leaf then he turned in over and saw some writing on the inside of it _'If Found please return to Naruto Uzumaki'._

"Naruto...Uzumaki? Is that me or does this belong to somebody else" Naruto said as he clenched the headband tight something inside him told him that he must be Naruto.

He soon began exploring the area he was at and saw that it was littered with various rubble,and glass which he could see came from various buildings and that some had collapsed on each other as if something forced them to collide.

_"What in the hell happened here?"_ thought Naruto as he began to that even the ground had been ripped apart.

_"Maybe I can find someone to explain to meet what happened."_ Naruto thought as he began to search the ruined city for anyone who could explain to him what had happened here or more importantly what caused this.

**In a Different Location:**

A woman no older than 17 was awakening and when she did she could hear a baby crying.

"Where am I?" she said as she looked around and saw the small baby crying,but right next to the baby she saw a small book.

She reached over to the book and then opened showing a picture of the small baby _'Rihoko Amaha,Girl,daughter to Masane Amaha'._

_"Masane Amaha is that me or somebody else? and is this my baby?"_ Masane thought was cut short as a sharp pain quickly was sent through her body.

She looked quickly over to where the pain came from her right wrist and saw that something was began to wrap around her arm arm as tentacles flew out and began to wrap around her entire body. Immediately she began to call out for help but when she did it was to late as the tentacles began to wrap around her head thus muffling out the screams for help and soon the tentacles had completely encased her as she began to lose conscious.

However unknown to her the jewel on the blade began to split into two one red which stayed with her but the other yellow which after it was split apart from the red gem left in some unknown location.

**Back With Naruto:**

While Naruto continued to search for anyone who could explain what happened.

Soon However Naruto heard a scream that was strangely cut short soon followed the screams origins as he saw a woman being what looked like consumed by tentacles. Instinctively he began to run towards the woman in order to hopefully help and possibly free her.

However his advancement was cut short as he felt something pierce his right wrist.

He looked over and saw that it was an object or creature very similar to the one that had began to entrap the woman the only difference was that the gem on this one was yellow in contrast to the red one on the other one.

"What the hell!get off me" Naruto said as he began to attempt to remove the creature by trying to rip it apart.

However this only seem to make the creature angry as it sped up it process and had wrap several on its tentacles around Narutos head who retaliated by biting the tentacles to no avail as it soon enveloped his head and in seconds his body.

The lasts thoughts Naruto had were _'I'm sorry' _before he too fell unconscious _._

**3 minutes later:**

Naruto slowly opened his eyes as the sound of a baby crying hit him however immediately he remembered what had happened to him that had caused him to go unconscious.

He quickly got up and began looking around for the creature, but saw nothing except a woman and a crying baby.

_'Was that all a dream or was it real' _Naruto thought as he looked at his right wrist where the creature had pierced into it to find nothing not even a scratch or any blood nothing that could prove to him that the creature or thing was real.

In a flash the sound of the babies crying made him put aside his thoughts as he ran over to the woman and the crying baby.

He bent down and looked at the unconscious woman as he began to shake her awake.

"Hey...sleeping times over you have a baby that nee-off!" Naruto was cut off as the woman woke up knocking him away as she grab the baby and simply looked at him.

"W-w-w-ho are you?" the woman said in obvious fear of Naruto.

Naruto looked in slight confusion at the woman who was once unconscious on the ground now in an instant was on her feet in fear of him.

"Don't worry my Name is Naruto Uzumaki and..I..um come in peace?" Naruto said with a grin as he scratched the back of his head.

"Masane...Amaha" Masane said as she began to clam down a bit.

"Well nice to meet you Masane" Naruto said with a large grin.

Masane didn't know what to think of this guy he looked nice,but she hadn't know him long enough to trust soon her thoughts were interrupted as the baby in her arms began to cry.

"Hey do you want any help with...um whats his or her name?" Naruto asked looking at Masane with the still crying baby.

"Her name is Rihoko and not to be sounding rude or anything,but how can you help? and more importantly why do you want to help" Masane retorted back as Naruto stood up and walked over to her grabbing Rihoko from her arms.

"Well as to how I can help watch and my reason for helping you is..well..I don't know but something is just telling me too" Naruto said with a grin as he turned and faced Rihoko.

"Hey what are you do-" Masane was cut off as Naruto began throwing Rihoko up and down.

In a few moments Rihokos tears where turned into pure laughter as Naruto caught her and re threw her once again.

"Be careful you moron she just a baby!" Masane yelled as Naruto continued to throw Rihoko up and down.

Soon Naruto stopped as Rihoko was fully happy and as Masane began to approach them.

"See Masane" Naruto said as he handed Rihoko to her mother "nothing to worry abo-ftf" Naruto was cut off as Masane punched him on the head.

"You idiot don't you know shes just a baby or are just deaf!What if you dropped her then what!" Masane yelled at Naruto as he clutched his head.

"I was just trying to help jeez..." Naruto said in an annoyed voice as he continued to rub his head.

After Masane had finally calmed down she realized that Narutos intention were good albeit a bit reckless but good none the less.

"Well..thank you Naruto sorry I got mad at you I might have gone overboard" Masane said with a blush on he face as Naruto stood up and faced her.

"It's alright just shows that your a good mom if you willing to hit me like that to keep your daughter safe" Naruto said with a smile as he put his hands behind his head as he began to laugh a bit.

"Yeah...but thing is I don't remember having her" Masane said as Naruto stop laughing and looked at her in a puzzled look.

"What do you mean you don't remember having her you can't forget you own daughter" Naruto said as he looked at her.

"No really I mean...I can't remember anything everything is just a blur all I remember is waking up here with Rihoko in my arms I don't even know if my names really Masane or if that's someone else and if Rihoko really belongs to me." Masane said as she looked down to the ground.

Naruto went over to her and put a hand on her shoulder "Hey Masane...Rihoko has to be your daughter other wise how can you explain how she was so close to you when all of this happened. You're all Rihoko's got now,and you have to be Masane because well...what else would I call you?" Naruto said in sincerity and kind filled voice.

Masane looked up and smiled at Naruto "Yeah you're right thanks Naruto." she replied but something caught both of their attention they looked at Masanes arms and saw Rihoko deep asleep making not even the slightest sound this caused theme to both _'awwwww'._

"No problem but that still leaves one last thing." Naruto whispered to Masane simply looked at him.

"Whats that?" Masane replied as she looked at Naruto.

"What happened here and how are we going to-" Naruto was cut off as an object was coming down from the sky which was quickly identified as a helicopter.

"Does that answer your question?' Masane said as the helicopter landed.

"Well part of it my other question is what happened here." Naruto whispered in a low voice that no-one could hear as he looked at the destroyed city.

"Naruto come on get on!" Masane shouted as Naruto got out of his trance like state.

"Oh...Sorry" Naruto said as he got onto the helicopter.

Slowly the helicopter began to ascend back into the sky.

When the helicopter was back in the air it gave Naruto a clearer view of the city he was, to say the lest, shocked. Most of the city was destroyed while other parts of it where completely submerged underwater.

"Hey...um sir what happened here?" Naruto asked the pilot.

"Yeah I was just about to ask the exact same thing." Masane said, agreeing with Naruto.

"Are you serious? Just where in god's green earth have you two been?" the pilot said somewhat annoyed as Naruto and Masane looked blankly at him.

"Ugh...don't pay me enough to do this..the Great Quake okay" the pilot said as Naruto looked confused at him.

"The Great quake..so what caused it?" Naruto asked as the pilot was starting to get very annoyed.

"You know something you ask way to many questions...look no-one knows what happened only that it did and now tons of people are dead" the pilot said the last part in a saddened voice obvious to both Naruto and Masane that he had lost someone important to him.

Just then something clicked inside of Masane's head.

"Hey Naruto what about your family?" Masane asked as Naruto looked out the window.

"I don't remember them..or even if I had a family come to think of it I can't remember anything." Naruto replied in an emotionless voice.

"Wait if you can't remember them or anything else, does that mean you just like m-" Masane was unable to finish her sentence as Naruto turned to her with a smile and eyes full of warmness.

"Just like you yeah I guess I am...so I guess that means you, me ,and Rihoko have got to stick together" Naruto said as he simply grinned.

"But why?I mean not that I hate your company but why would you want to stay with us?" Masane asked as Naruto simply grinned.

"Well after today you might need help with Rihoko right? Not that I'm saying your a bad parent or anything just saying you could use a little help." Naruto explained.

"Fine, but no matter what happens you not allowed to leave me or Rihoko got it?" Masane said sternly .

"Pinky promise" Naruto said as he held out his pinky finger.

"Pinky promise"Masane replied as she wrapped her own pinky around his.


	2. Chapter 2

**6 years later:**

"Mom, Dad! Wake up, we're here!" a young six-year-old girl shouted, looking at the tower just beyond in the distance.

However the two people she had called for were still asleep, which made her slightly upset, so she walked over to were both of them were sleeping.

"Mom wake up come on." Rihoko said as she began to shake Masane in the hopes of waking her up.

"Five more minutes...please." Masane said in an obvious, sleepy voice which caused Rihoko to puff up her cheeks in frustration and so she had decided to attempt and wake up her father, Naruto.

"Come on, time to wake up! you're missing out!" Rihoko said happily as she poked Naruto's face, but proved to get nowhere as Naruto continued to sleep with a beat of drool coming off of his lip as well as a him snoring.

Now this was making Rihoko very upset as she stomped her foot and took a deep breath in "MASANE, NARUTO WAKE UP!" Rihoko shouted as both Masane and Naruto woke up immediately in a shock of surprise.

"Sorry Rihoko I was really comfortable..." Masane said as she began to rub her eyes due to the sudden sunniness beside Naruto, who was still yawning from his sudden awakening.

"Your telling me...I felt like I was sleep on a bunch of rocks." Naruto said as he stood up and cracked his back with a much-welcomed pop.

"Sorry Dad, but I couldn't let you or Mom miss the view." Rihoko pointed towards the tower as both Naruto and Masane looked towards the direction that Rihoko was pointing at and saw the reason why Rihoko had decided to wake them up.

"Wow, now I see why you woke us up in the first place. This place is beautiful." Naruto said as he grinned and as both Rihoko and Masane giggled.

Suddenly a group of rubber ducks began to float not to far from the boat that the group was on, but one little duck began to float away form the group so Masane loomed over the side of the boat in an effort to get the small plastic duck back with its group.

"Come on little guy, don't want to get left behind by you family in this big bad world." Masane said as she began to splash the water around the duck in an effort to get the duck back with its family.

"Mom, be careful." Rihoko said in order to make sure her Mom doesn't fall over.

"Don't worry your little head," Masane replied as she continued her antics.

However soon Masane began to fall over ,but was caught by Naruto, who had a big smile on his face.

"Where would you be with out me" Naruto teased.

"Shut up idiot." Masane said playfully as she hit him on the head sending him to the ground as he clutched his head in pain.

"Rather be an Idiot than a tomboy." Naruto retorted as Masane began to fume with anger.

"What did you just say?" Masane yelled.

"N-n-nothing Masane dear, heheheh." Naruto replied nervously as out on nowhere a big dog came out and began to lick him.

"Doggy!" Rihoko said joyfully as she ran over and began to pet the dog.

"So what brings you three to Tokyo?" The Captain asked out of nowhere.

"Oh, well we want to start a new life here." Masane replied.

"Well I hope that you can have the life that you want, besides with a daughter like that, things should be easier. I mean look at her she just met my dog and she's already got him eating out to the pawn of her hand." The captain said as Masane's eyes softened as she looked at Rihoko playing with the dog.

"Yeah she really is something" Masane said with a smile.

"Were almost there" he said as the boat slowed down and eventually stopped.

"Well here we are be careful when getting off the boat" The Captain said as Naruto, Masane,and Rihoko all nodded and began to head off the boat.

"Oh wait, I forgot to give you this." Masane said as she hurried back onto they boat and presented the captain of the ship with a small hanker-chief.

"Hmm? What's this for?" The captain questioned as he looked and the piece of cloth.

"Well I saw that you're missing one of your flags, so I figured that I could give you a sort of replacement to thank you for the ride." Masane said as she walked over to where they flags were and attached the hanker-chief to it.

"Thanks, take care of yourselves alright" The captain said as Masane left.

"Wow, its so different than how it used to be." Masane said as she Rihoko and Naruto walked through what looked like markets.

"Yeah and I've never seen so many people, but be careful Mom I don't want you to get lost." Rihoko as Naruto began to start chuckling at this statement.

"Whats so funny?" Masane asked looking at the still chuckling Naruto.

"Hehe...Nothing just that what Rihoko told you is what a parent should have said not the other way around." Naruto said as he continued to chuckle up until Masane smacked him on the head

"Hey that was uncalled for." Naruto said as he clutched his head.

"Its your own fault, haven't you heard of being a gentlemen?" Masane said as she turned away from Naruto.

"Yeah, but for me to be a gentleman, there has to be a lady here not some tomboy." Naruto said with a smirk and stood up as Masane turned around and looked up at him with angery eyes.

"What do you just call me?" Masane said as she looked up at Naruto with her hands on waist.

"Did I stutter? T-O-M-B-O-Y! TOMBOY!" Naruto responded as he locked eyes with Masane.

"Dad, Mom stop arguing, you two your drawing attention." Rihoko as she tried to pushed Naruto and Masane apart.

"Pff..She started it...although back to the root of this argument, Rihoko does have a point what if we get separated." Naruto said completely forgetting his small argument with Masane.

"Your right...hmmm...Hey I got it, if any of use get separated let's meet up at the Tokyo tower" Masane said with a smile as both Naruto and Rihoko nodded.

"But first..."Naruto was cut off as a big rumble was coming from his stomach much to Rihoko and Masanes amusement as they both giggled.

"Come there must be someplace to eat so lets go" Masane said as all three of them set off to find food in Narutos case Ramen.

In little to no time they had found a nice little place to eat and much to Naruto's delight it sold Ramen.

"Geez Naruto...eat your ramen, don't breath it in. Besides, you need to eat something else besides ramen." Masane said jokingly as Naruto shot a small glare at her before returning to his ramen.

"Mom's right Dad, ramen's good once and awhile but you can't really run on it." Rihoko said as she went back to eating her own bowl of ramen as Naruto suddenly stopped eating his ramen, dropped his chopsticks and stood up from where he was sitting.

"Hey, you're eating ramen too so that makes you fall under the same category as me." Naruto said as Rihoko and Masane just looked at him and sighed.

"No it doesn't, we don't constantly eat ramen for breakfast, lunch, or dinner" Rihoko said as she finished her bowl of ramen.

"Yeah, now sit down and finish your bowl. You're starting to act like an idiot." Masane said as she herself had finished her bowl as Naruto head his hang down in defeat as he sat down and went back to finishing his bowl.

However suddenly a voice came for behind them.

"There you are!" A brown haired woman announced as Naruto, Masane, and Rihoko all turned around and then jumped out of their seats with Rihoko clutching onto Masane and Naruto getting a sort of defensive position.

"What in hell do you want?" Naruto spat out in anger as he curled his fist in anger.

"Please, I don't wish for this to end in a violent matter this time." The women said, signaling the two cops that she had next to her.

"Then leave us alone and your buddies wont get hurt!" Naruto growled out in responce.

"Naruto, " Masane said firmly as she put her hand on Naruto's shoulder, who simply turned his head and looked her in the eyes before nodding.

"We'll talk."Masane said, the women who nodded.

**Police Station:**

"For The last time I'm NOT sighing anything that is going to take Rihoko away from me!" Masane shouted.

"You can't provide for her: you have no money, no food, no job, and no home at all on top of that! " The women replied slightly raising her voice.

Before Masane replied Naruto slammed his hand onto the table with nearly enough force to break it.

"Just Who the HELL do you think you are deciding whats best for Rihoko! It should be her own decision, not yours! Tell me: do you honestly like to see a daughter be taken away from her family just so you can earn a few extra bucks on your paycheck, huh?" Naruto shouted his voice full of anger, his eyes looked for a second that they flickered red with slit pupils.

"Please do not involve yourself in matters that do not concern you." The women said as an officer began to approach him.

"Lay a hand on me, and in less then five seconds, you'll be on the ground gasping for air." Naruto said calmly as he locked eyes with the now sweating officer.

"Naruto, stop scaring him." Rihoko said as she pulled on Naruto's orange sweater.

"Okay Rihoko, for you, anything." Naruto said with a smile as he knelt down and stroked the top of Rihoko's head.

"Please, could you take Rihoko outside so that I could speak with Masane alone?" The Women said as Naruto let out a primal growl while giving the woman an ugly glare, but stopped when Rihoko began pulling on his cheek.

"Aah! Rihoko please stop that." Naruto begged as she finally let go.

"Well, starting being nicer to people." Rihoko said as she put her hands on her waist.

"I'll try...but it really depends on who they are." Naruto said, shooting a sideways glare at the woman as he held Rihoko's hand and left the room with her but not before looking back at Masane, giving her a pleading glance that said to make the right choice for Rihoko.

"Look Masane, you need to think what is best for Rihoko, you can't go on like this..." The Women said.

"No! I've always placed her needs above mine!" Masane was cut off from finishing her sentence.

"Yes, but how long do you think you can keep it up? Masane, I know you care for Rihoko greatly, but you have to think what is best for her." The Women said as she handed over some papers.

**In the Hallway:**

"Do you think Mom will tell that evil lady no?" Rihoko asked in a voice filled with uncertainty as Naruto then looked down at her with a smile.

"Of course. If your Mom has taught me anything, it's that she's no pushover and that your the most important thing in the world to her and she wouldn't do anything for you unless it was for your good." Naruto said as Rihoko smiled.

However, when the door opened, only the women came out, causing Rihoko to clinch on harder to Naruto's side.

"Come on Rihoko, it's time for us to go." The women said as she walked towards Naruto and Rihoko.

"Where's Mom?" Rihoko asked as she clinched harder onto Naruto.

"Your Mom's not coming, but she told me that you should come with me." The Women said as a man attempt to grab onto her but was stopped by Naruto

"Don't you dare touch my daughter!" Naruto spat out in a voice full of venom and anger before kneeling down to Rihoko.

"Rihoko, you have to go with them." Naruto said as Rihoko's eyes widened.

"W-w-what? Why? I don't want to go with them! I want to stay with you and mom just like always! Please I don't want to leave you!" Rihoko pleaded on the verge of tears as Naruto hugged her.

"I know you don't, Rihoko, I don't want to leave you either, but remember what I told you that she wouldn't do anything unless it was for your own good? Well it applies to this, I don't want you to leave. I'd rather another quake hit than that ever happen, but Masane wants whats best for you, so here..." Naruto said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his headband.

"Your headband...but why?" Rihoko said as Naruto placed it in her hands.

"Because I promise we'll meet again someday and that you, me, Masane will be together again,so until then, please hold onto this for me." Naruto said as Rihoko hugged him and he hugged her back.

In mere moments in what HAD to be the most terrible in Naruto's life, they left to which Naruto went into the room and saw Masane crying. Naruto said nothing but wrap his arms around her.

Suddenly Naruto's eyes burned with a frightning determination.

"Masane, lets go get Rihoko." Naruto said as Masane looked up at him, tears still in her eyes.

"W-what?" Masane said, wiping a few stray tears off her face.

"Lets go get Rihoko. You obliviously made a mistake...good thing I'm here to fix it." Naruto said as he ran out of the room with Masane in tow.


	3. Chapter 3

"Come along young lady we have much to do" The lady said as Rihoko simply crossed her arms and looked away.

"Quit acting like you care, if you really do than you would have left me with my mom and dad!" Rihoko said as angrily as the woman bent down to her level.

"Please listen, your Mother did this because she wants the best for you, and besides your father is not at all the kind of role model a young lady like you should have or be exposed to he's nothing more than a brute, listening to his fists more than reason." The Lady said as Rihoko glared at her for that comment.

"Dad is not a brute! He's the nicest person in the world,next to my mom, and always took care of us no matter what! And he's only mean to people when they're mean to us!" Rihoko replied as the lady simply looked surprised.

"I'm sorry that I offended you, perhaps I was wrong about Naruto, I haven't know him a long time, but it still doesn't change the fact that he nor your mother can provide you with everything you need, but if you come with us, I'm sure a nice family will just love to have you." The Woman said with a smile as Rihoko simply turned away, crossing her arms causing the woman to sigh and walked over to the car opening the back door.

As Rihoko got in it she turned around and looked at the women her eyes full of emotion.

"All you need is love, and love is something My mom and dad always gave me" Rihoko stated simply as the Woman was left with no rebuttal, and so simply shut the door.

However suddenly one of the officers was launched back his, nose and mouth bleeding with several teeth missing caused by non other than Naruto who now had an angry look upon his face.

"Told you not to get in my way!" Naruto said simply as cracked his knuckles as Masane came from behind him running towards the car Rihoko was in.

"MOM! DAD!" Rihoko shouted happily as she attempted to leave the car, but was stopped by the woman who blocked her passage.

"Hurry start the car! Officers stop that man!" The Woman said as she began to push Rihoko into the car.

"Stop! Let me go! Mom! Dad! Help!" Rihoko shouted as the car began to leave and in mere moments, it had begun to leave the area.

"Dammit! We should have been faster!" Masane said as two cops rushed towards Naruto, who turned around quickly punching one in the ribs while headbutting him, causing the man to cough up blood as well as sending him to the ground and roundhouse kicking the other one sending him straight to the ground where his body started to twitch.

After Naruto checked their pulses to make sure they were alive he checked their pockets finding the keys to the car that was parked.

"Got the keys..I'm drivi-Hey!" Naruto exclaimed as Masane quickly took the keys from his hands running towards the car.

"Forget I can drive better than you with my bear feet now get in" Masane said as Naruto was about to enter the car, but stopped when he saw more officers arrive.

"Go Masane...I've got this." Naruto said with a smile as Masane simply shook her head.

"Naruto, sometimes you can be such a brute," Masane said jokingly as she started the car.

"Yep...but I'm your brute" Naruto said with a chuckle as Masane simply gave him a smile before hitting the accelerator and taking off after the car Rihoko was in.

"So, who's first?" Naruto said as he ran towards the officers, his fists curled and with a smirked plastered on his face.

**With Rihoko:**

"Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!" Rihoko shouted as she began to kick in all kinds of direction.

"I'm Sorry, but this is all for the best." The Woman said as she continued to drive only to see a police car moving extremely fast towards her direction and when she looked into the driver's seat was none other the Masane Amaha, who had promptly began to drive her car into the car next to her before pulling down her window.

"Rihoko!" Masane shouted as the woman began to speed up in an attempt to shake the dedicated mother off her trail.

"What Kind of a lunatic are you! Stealing a police car! Now you'll never be able to have your daughter back!" The Woman shouted as she went passed and in front of Masane before entering freeway. Masane, however, kept her eye on the car, but did not notice the curb that was in her way as she smashed into it resulting in the car being flipped over skidding awhile before it stop.

"MOM!" Rihoko cried out in terror at what she had seen before she slowly lost sight of the car, tears running down her face, hoping that her mother would be safe and unharmed.

The car was now upside down, and slowly Masane began to regain her vision, looking at the car that she was chasing before she lost sight of it.

"R-Rihoko..." Masane said weakly as she slowly began to lose vision, everything darkening, as the sound of a siren in the background came closer.

As she blacked out, a red light filled the police car she was in.

"Hh...if these humans are stupid enough to think I'd allow something like this to stop my bearer...and I'll give this one and that male of hers this much: I'm honestly jelious that my own parents aren't anything like them."

**With Naruto:**

Ducking under a swing of a baton Naruto sent a hard punch straight into the gut, causing the police officer to slough over in pain as Naruto brought his hands together slamming down on the officer's back causing the man to fall to the ground with a loud thump.

Naruto quickly shifted his attention to the remaining officer as he ran towards him much faster than the man could react tackling the man hard into the ground, effectively knocking all his air out.

"Well that's the last of them now to get out of here before-" Naruto was cut off as he turned to see several police officers aiming their guns in his direction with Naruto letting out a sigh before raising his hands up.

"Well this isn't how I expected things to go." Naruto thought as rushed off through an ally, hoping that Masane was having better luck than he was as he silently broke the handcuffs with little effort.

"Don't worry Rihoko, Masane, no matter what the cost I'll make sure all of us are together again that's a promise" Naruto thought with as he waited for the car to stop at a red light. As soon as it did, Naruto kn

**With Rihoko:**

"I'm sure that your happy that your mother wasn't hurt Rihoko, but what she did was a very bad thing, and that Naruto fella also attacked police officers who are now critically injured, both are bad examples that we don't want for you." The Woman said as Rihoko stared blankly**.**

"I gotta pee." Rihoko said as the woman turned to her "Sure. Take all the time you want" as she closed the bathroom door, and the second she did, Rihoko climbed onto a toilet, opening a window then climbed through it.

As she got out of the she stood on a ledge which was fairly high off the ground, so, seeing a tree across from her, she jumped, but fell with a scream going through some leaves in the process.

As she fell she hit something soft which turned out to be another person a man to be specific

"Ahh! Geez...my back" the man groaned in pain. "Oh sorry about that." Rihoko replied as she got off the man's back.

"Did I hurt you?" Rihoko asked as the man quickly got on his knees.

"Oh no my camera!" the man said as he took a picture to check if his camera was in good order to which it was.

"Your a lucky lady this sucker's my li-"

"You have to help me mister, do you have a car?" Rihoko asked interrupting him in the process.

"Well yeah so what?" he replied with indiffrence in his voice.

"Rihoko! Where are you!" The woman shouted as she peered out the window Rihoko had escaped from.

"Rihoko huh? I'm guessing that's you." The man said as Rihoko quickly turned her head towards him.

"Please you have to help me escape this place, I gotta save my mom plus I need to make sure dad's okay." Rihoko pleaded as the man simply looked dumfounded at her request.

"Are you nuts? Do you know what they do kidnappers?" He replied as he saw an officer with his flashlight on.

"I'm outta here!" the man said as he got up to run only to have Rihoko hold onto him. _"I know I gonna regret this"_ The man thought in his head as he grabbed Rihoko's hand, and headed off to his car.

As they drove off he looked at the little girl who currently had her back pack close to her.

"Tozawa Yuusuke" he said as Rihoko turned her attention.

"What?" Rihoko replied.

"It's my name, figured if I knew your name you should at least know mine...so where's your mom?" Tozawa asked.

"In jail," Rihoko replied simply as Tozawa simply sighed.

_"Why am I not surprised?"_ Tozawa thought in his head as he continued to drive.

**With Naruto:**

As Naruto was pulled out of the car, he suddenly fell over on his hands and knees.

"Get up!" one officer snapped, trying to pull the blond to his feet, as he did so, Naruto headbutted the officer hard enough to make him stumble back and then Naruto, without knowing how he knew how to, quickly moved his hands over his head so his cuffed hands were in front of him as he moved behind the officer and started using his handcuffs to stranggle him.

"Give this guy some breathing room!" Naruto shouted, getting the attention of the other officer, who quickly uncuffed one of Naruto's wrists, and he quickly tossed the unconscious officer aside while kicking the one who had undone his cuffs in the chin and sent him flying back and he banged his head against the concrete.

"Sorry you guys, nothig personal, your job's to enforce the law and mine's to protect my wife and daughter, so that put us on opposite sides." Naruto said then dashed off to where he he had last seen Masane heading when she took the police car. Growling to himself in frustration, Naruto decided to take a shortcut. Running through a dark alley. Cliché. Bad idea…right? Maybe for the poor schmucks trying to jump him. Four greasy looking punks, again, really cliché, had closed in on him from either end of the shortcut.

One of them exploding out of his skin? Not so expected.

"So, it's you," the mass of metal hummed, dropping the slashed remains of its now dead comrades. "You're the one…making my blood boil!"

The blond man groaned. Great, what NOW? He didn't have time for this! No weapon on hand, so… sighing, he rolled up his sleeves "You know, I'm in a hurry, so if you wanna try your luck, let's go already!"

"With pleasure!" the robotic creature shouted and rushed him.

Naruto slid down the wall, eyes rolling back in his head. As the thing rushed him again, a long, double-edged blade shot out of his wrist and sliced the thing in half, causing it to explode.

"Hmmm...strong host. But no memory...need to fix that or he's nearly useless as far as protecting her goes. Shame, he's a good fighter if the way this body feels is anything to go off by." Naruto muttered in a matalic-laced version of his own voice as the blade retracted and left no trace of being there at all.

...However long ago it was, he didn't know, but when he awoke and slowly stood up, Naruto found himself lying against an old worn mattress with no one around and jail bars nearby with no sound anywhere nearby.

"HEY!" Naruto shouted moving to the bars, "Where the hell am I?"

"Shut it!" someone shouts angry from down the hall, "You've done enough damage to those men we sent after you."

"Where's Masane and Rihoko?" Naruto shouted angrily, grabbing the bars of his cell, "Tell me damn it!"

An officer comes walking towards Naruto's cell, weapon drawn, "Shut the hell up you bastard!" He yelled, pointing the pistol towards Naruto, who didsn't even flinch, "Because of you, several good cops are in the hospital, so I don't want to hear about that women and kid."

"Where are they?" Naruto said.

"Just shut it and go to sleep." the guard snarled to the blond, "You'll be sorry in the morning." He informed before heading away in a hurry.

"Masane, Rihoko..." Naruto mumbled, leaning against the wall and sliding down to a curled up position on the floor, "Are you two all right?" he asked himself as a yellow light started to glow on his right wrist.

**With Masane:**

As Masane slowly began to awaken, the first thing she felt was the cold hard ground to which she quickly scrambled onto her knees. She quickly looked around and noticed that she was in jail. She simply stared down at her hands before she began to cry "I'm sorry Rihoko..I shouldn't left you alone, and I'm sorry I got you in this mess Naruto." Masane thought as she curled up on a small bed of the cell as a voice entered her mind.

"Are you two all right?" the voice asked, it sounded like Naruto.

Sitting up quickly, Masane looked around to see no one nearby, _"Well that's weird."_ she thought, eyeing the cell door, _"I could have sworn..."_ Her thoughs were cut off as a quick, sharp pain shoot through her arm, more specifically on her right wrist. As she looked at her wrist, it suddenly began to glow a dazzlingly red color before it, along with the pain, stop.

"It's gone the glowing on my wrist." Masane said as a loud thumping noises caught her attention.

Down a couple of cells from her, an inmate was continuously bang against the cell door a bright blue color color on coming off of his left arm.

Suddenly the glow returned, and Masane clenched her wrist in pain to which the glowing seemed to grow.

"I CAN TASTE IT! IT'S DELICIOUS!" the man said licking the air as he struggle to get out of his cell tearing at his clothes revealing a bracelet with a blue gem glow as his body started to change from a man into a creature that looked no longer human tearing through the cell door.

While this was happening the pain coming from Masane's wrist continued to grow as did the bright red light coming from it causing to fall on her side while she began to yell in pain. Hearing her yells a Guard went to investigate unknown to the creature that was coming down the hallway until the creature had destroyed one of the entrances to the cells. When the officer turned his attention to the creature that backed a claw shaped weapon before it launched at him pining him to the wall. The guard pulled out his gun, and began shooting at the creature hoping that it would have an effect on it.

Unfortunately for him his actions only agitated the creature, causing it to pull back on of it's claws, before launching it forward causing the wall behind to explode leaving a huge hole.

**With Naruto:**

Naruto's head shot up as he looked around, _"Something's wrong..." _he lept up, jumping to the bars looking around, _"Masane…"_

With Masane:

"Masane…" a voice mutters causing Masane to look up at the giant creature standing before her with a crushing pincer winding away.

_"Naruto!"_ she thought before she grabbed her wrist as the monster readied its attack.

"Hey what's going on?" two more officers shout coming to the cell just to be whacked aside like nothing.

_"No," _Masane thought, holding her wrist tightly, _"I won't die here…" _

Suddenly a crimson whip erupts from her wrist cutting through a part of the mechanical monster as Masane looked directly at it with eyes that seem to reflect the moon as her wrist, the one that had caused her pain, turned into a gauntlet that had a blade underneath the forearm, and a red gem imbedded in its center before it began to spread to the rest of her body, getting rid of her clothing, and replacing it with an armor of sorts that left very little to the imagination. Black metallic armor spread, started to grow from her wrist to form a grayish black gauntlet and from there, spread up her arm and across her entire back. The armor wrapped around most of her left hand, a red gem imbedded in it's center, the black metal making her hands more like claws with blade-like nails. The armor on her legs ended in bladed high-heel stilettos at her feet that go up to her knee, but the outfit revealed her stomach and most of her chest that curves around her breast was wrapped around her arms, legs and shoulders. Her hair turned blood red and grew out to where it stopped just above her butt and her eyes turned gold as the sclera turned pitch black. Two sideways-turned crecent shaped maroon tribal markings appeared on her face along her cheeks.

"Oh you must be a Neo-gene! no wonder your scent was so amazing" The robotic creature said, "I'm really getting excited!" The creature said.

Masane merely looked at it, then red tentacles erupt from the ends of her hair forcing the creature out of the cell. "Sorry," the transformed Masane mutters raising her right arm, a blade sprouting from the underside of her forearm, "Sorry you just don't do it for me." Masane said as she turned to the hole the creature had made, not without the creature getting up attempting to charge at her only to be killed it one swing of her blade cutting it in half.

The result was the creature exploding, and Masane simply staring at her blade that was now covered in a white blood of sorts, she shurgged, her bloodlust sated for the moment. Annoying, but necessary. before turning back to the hole in the wall. There was another aspect in which she wished to indulge, but she would wait for him to come to her for that to be sated.

**With Naruto:**

Grasping his wrist, Naruto curled up on the ground as images of some kind of monster-robot enters his mind, then the licking of some liquid off a gauntlet-covered arm. "What are these?" he asked himself.

As the images flashed behind his eyes, he felt the pain in his wrist grow, as well as something almost begging to be released as yellow light blinded him, while strange energy spread throughout his body when it enountered resistance as his body began radiating energy of its own. Chakra. A calming pale blue-white. The two opposing energies fought over territory until, after a time, they began swirling together, working as one.

A mass of metal on his arm grew out of his wrist, reshaped itself, spreading out until it took the shape of a an odd, intricately wrought, sliver bracelet with tribal-like markings etched into its surface and it was bejeweled with a single yellow eye-like jewel in the center on it. Its transformation finished, both energies receded, both the unknow and his own, each bearing a touch of the other.

The strange band on his arm pulsed, warming ever slightly, the jewel glowing yellow light as several reddish yellow tentacles erupt from his wrist. The metal uncoiled, stretching and wrapping around his hand in the form of a gauntlet, then going all the way up to his shoulder as a duplicate of the armor formed on his left arm, only it lacked the yellow jewel the gauntlet on his right arm did.

It didn't stop there.

There was a sudden, brief swell of energy before he was clad in rustic, silver and calming pale blue-white armor that had glowing lines and runes covered its surface in some unknown, yet entrancing pattern. The armor spread over his body. Interlocking plates cascaded down his chest and abdomen, moderately covering his crotch so as not to hinder movement, and down his legs, ending in skin-tight metal sabaton. His back was less armored, but a metallic spine provided a good deal of protection. Creeping up his neck, feeling more like cloth than metal, it ended just barely covering his jaw line up to his ears, a portion covering the back of his skull. The last of the process was when, above his eyes and below, on either side, matching plates came across to meet in a modest helm hugging his head and face while his blond hair became silver.

Sapphire blue eyes glowed a ghostly silver, heightening the effect with black sclera surrounding them while two tribal-like red lines, a single one on each cheek, stopping in the middle of his cheeks, and looking as though they'd been cut with a jagged sword blade, replacing his whisker-marks.

This armor, the…metal…was surprisingly flexible, but strong. Nor was it bulky. In fact, it was surprising how little it hindered his movement. In fact, it felt regular cloth, but was hardered than alloy. Again, he sensed his chakra's influence. It was freely intermingling with the odd energy within the band.

Chakra...he knew that word from somewhere, didn't he?

But at the moment the band and the armor it had formed seemed to tell him something that stood out loud and clear in him mind, sheer instinct driving it.

**"****GeT uP...PrOtECt tHeM..."**

"Masane!" he cried out, thinking at once that this had to do with how he'd felt that Masane was in harm's way.

"Hey!" the guard shouted angrily, "Keep quiet!"

"Masane's in danger...I'm coming Masane!" he muttered as a blade shot out of the claw-like gauntlet coveing his wrist and he slashed a hole large enough for him to get out of out of the wall behind him.

Unknown to him, two people had sensed the releases of energy as they drove, and were now quite interested.

"Do you feel that Doctor?" a brunet women in a blue jacket light blue skirt and matching shirt questions a long dark purple haired women in a dark pink near purple business suit.

"I did Shiori," she answered, stopping the car and getting out, "But it doesn't feel like an Ex-con, but almost…"

"Like one of our sisters, but different, Dr. Soho." Shiori finished as a loud explosion was heard from nearby, causing both to go on guard as a figure cleared a ten-foot wall to their left and landed in front of them. "Is that a…?" Shiori questioned, eyeing the armored, silver-haired man in front of them.

"No," Dr Soho answered calmly, eyeing the man's gauntlet covered right arm, "It's similar, but drastically different in many ways."

_"Masane,"_ the transformed Naruto thought, looking around, he then looked toward the ladies and their car, "Where's Masane?" he asked them calmly, there was something about the two he could sense that put him on edge, but he wasn't going to attack first.

"Whose Masane?" questioned Dr. Soho, coming out from the driver's side door.

Eyeing him as she came out, Shiori raised her left wrist, a dull sliver bracelet stood out with what looked like a blue eye-like jewel in the center, its blue jewel glowing. Seeing it, Naruto slowly let a silver blade extend from his right forearm.

"Dr. Soho…" she tried to warn as the man saw it.

"Shiori!" Soho shouted as the man eyed the bracelet, before meeting Shiori's gaze.

Naruto jumped back as Shiori had a sudden, ragging wind surround her with a flash of blue light and a sudden, brief swell of energy before she was clad in a dark blue and cyan colored armor that showed off her rather large assets. The blue skirted armor moderatly covering her womanhood and then extending down her legs and covering her feet. Attached at her left wrist was a massive crescent-shaped blade longer than she was tall. Her hair had become a silver-white, and her eyes shown with a light blue.

"Oh my," Naruto muttered while looking away, blushing. "Please put something on."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Shiori shouted twitching as she felt her temper build.

"Well you're practically naked right now," Naruto mumbled as he scratched his nose innocently, "And I'm not a pervert."

Reina just sighed before looking to Shiori, "Just capture him Shiori, and get this over with." she ordered and Shiori nodded.

"Of course Ma'am," Shiori said, then she charged at Naruto, reeling her left arm back to swing the giant blade. "Come with us willing or be beaten down and taken with us."

Naruto just stared and started to laugh as Shiori just glared at him.

"What's so funny?"

"Your stance is all wrong for that type of weapon." Naruto told her, somehow knowing that as if he'd been trained in combat for years and fought for a living. "Let me show you how someone really fights."

Feeling her pride take a blow at someone she'd never before met talking down to her about her ability, Shiori scowled. "I'll show you how to fight!" Shiori shouted charging at Naruto with a wide swing just to have Naruto grasp her wrist stopping her mid-swing. "What the…?"

"Like this swing," Naruto said calmly as he held her wrist firmly, "It's far too wide to hit someone like me, who is faster then you."

Twitching, Shiori sent a kick forward with her left leg, just to have Naruto jump over her holding her wrist and slamming her into the ground. "Now you just threw yourself off-balance with that move," he lectured her, pissing her off further. Then Judo tossed her over his shoulder and she winced as she struck the ground.

"Bastard!" Shiori shouted, getting up and going for a simple thrust with her blade, causing Naruto to sigh as he slams his fingers into the tip of the blade, sending it to the ground as he droped underneath it with a low reverse spin kick to the back of her legs causing her to go into the spin as she fell on her ass and sent her into a tree.

"Too much weight to the front of the attack," Naruto lectured calmly as he smirked as Shiori stood up, shaking her head before glaring at the silver-haired man in front of her. "You're gutsy, I'll give you that...but whoever trained you did a horrible job," he informed her calmly, looking toward his gauntlet-covered right hand as if checking his nails.

"I'll show you!" Shiori shouted as she swung the blade again and Naruto side-steped her, before she started going into a wild amount of them.

_"He isn't even trying."_ Reina thought as Naruto kept dodging all her attacks with a bored expression on his face.

Sighing, Naruto glared at Shiori, _"She's lost herself in her anger,"_ Naruto thought, dodging another strike, _"this isn't even worth my time anymore." _Suddenly Naruto reached out, catching Shiori's blade and stopping her attacks, "You lost your cool and it cost you this fight," he told her before ramming his fist into her stomach causing her eyes to widen before she staggered back.

Looking up and glaring while she held her stomach with one arm, Shiori charged swinging the blade wide, as Naruto sighed, avoiding the attack lazily before grabbing her wrist and twisting it around her back and pulling her close.

"How dull," Naruto muttered in her ear as Soho transformed, the color of her armor was pink and white, her hair also being white, as a large blade grew out of her r armor on her left forearm. Naruto shoved Shiori away from him and she stumbled before standing next to Soho.

"Please stand aside ladies," Naruto asked, crossing his arms in front of him.

"Shiori," Soho said calmly, eyeing the opponent in front of them, "Don't underestimate him, he's different from others."

"I won't Dr. Soho," Shiori told her, chargingwith her crescent blade raised and clashing with a long sword blade Naruto had grow out of his wrist, "Now just die!"

"Sorry Sweet cheeks," Naruto replied as he watched Shiori struggling with her attack before spinning around going for trying to land a slash across his chest as he just side-stepped it, seepling his index and middle fingers as he did so while he had the blade coming from his wrist fully retract.

"This is the kind of thing that could happen if you let your emotions get the better of you in a fight. Strait from the teachings of Kakashi-sensei...A thousand years of death!"

Naruto rammed them into the Shiori's rectum, causing her to go red in the face and scream bloody murder as she went flying and she nose-dived right into the ground.

Naruto shook his hands while wondering why he made the scarecrow comment, before raising his blade up to stop Soho's blade from coming down on him. "And the albino makes her move."

"I don't wish to fight you," Soho tried reasoning before she found a foot colliding with her stomach sending her flying towards her own car. She stabbed her blade into the ground to stop herself before she attacked him again, as he spun around, dropping to the ground as her blade flied over his head and he send his left foot up into her chin, sending her into the air.

"Your actions seems to disagree," he told them as he appeared behind Shiori, "It's been fun Sweet-Cheeks," He informed her as he jabbed her in a nerve cluster on her lower back causing her to temporarily loose motor functions, "but I feel my daughter nearby so I've got to be going." he told them.

"Daughter?" Shiori muttered as she felt an ax kick to her stomach send her to the ground, making a spiderweb crater as Naruto lept to the rooftops and made his way along them expertly while Soho struggled to stand, leaning on her car for help as a trickle of white liquid escaped the corner of her mouth.

Twitching, Shiori eyed where he left, "I'm going to beat him next time!"

_"He's defiantly stronger then an Ex-con,"_ Dr. Soho thought, walking over to her assistant who was struggling to get up, her face full of rage and embarrassment, "He seemed trained for combat and skilled at close range. Let's report to Father for now, Shiori." Soho answered walking back to the car, "I am sure he would want to know about this."

"Yes ma'am," Shiori replied following behind with a slight limp as she holds her stomach, _"Bastard, that hurt."_

Naruto jumped along the tops of the buildings around him until he spotted movement bellow him and jumped down to see what it was, for whatever reason, the presence felt like he knew them.

It was a redhead that was dressed in armor like the two he had just faced did. At the sight of him, her face gaining a grin from this before she licked her lips in excitement.

"Hello Naruto." she purred. Naruto's jaw dropped, recognizing the woman's voice.

"MASANE...?" he shouted and she crossed her arms under her breasts with a sadisfied smirk on her face with a nod of confermation.

"Masane...what happened to you?" Naruto asked as he observed her new appearance, only to have respond by her using her finger telling him to come to her before she left.

Without any question, Naruto quickly followed, not losing sight of her even for a moment.

As he continued following her as she ran through another alley before he finally lost sight of her.

He quickly stopped running, panting slightly as he did so before he looked around the alley.

Then, seemingly out out nowhere, she pinned him to a wall her arms quickly wrapping around his neck, her breasts pressing against his chest, and her leg sliding up his leg before wrapping around it.

"That was a nice game we played Naruto." she said with a grin, as she licked her lips. "Now I think that it's time you got your prize" she said as she buried her face into his neck, biting slightly on his collarbone before slowly running her tongue up his neck.

Naruto could only let out small grunts of pleasure, and Masane reached his ear nibbling it slightly before she faced him, her face slowly moving towards his own.

At first he was surprised at her actions, now he was in absolute shock as he saw her lips get closer to his own, but then decide to forget about it, closing his own eyes and moved his lips closer to hers.

Then moments before they kissed, he felt her arms let go, and he opened his eyes to see that she had begun to faint returning back to her original state, before passing out in Naruto's arms.

Before he could do anything, he felt something prick him, like a bee sting or a dart, then he started feeling dizzy and collapsed on the side of the alley, Masane still in his arms.

His last images was that of figure slowly walking towards them.


	4. Chapter 4

"So what have you found on her Segawa" a man said looking out a large window that overlooked Tokyo as another man walked in with data pad in his hands.

"Greeting to you too, Director Takayama, besides her name, not much sir. According to police records she's a 'lost ID', so any record of who she was before the quake is gone." Segawa said as he continued to read the data pad.

"It seems that the government created a new ID for her" stated Segawa.

"I understood they did that mainly for the orphaned and the senile." Takayama stated as Segawa nodded his head.

"There's more she was found with an infant, and with a maternity diary that confirmed she was the mother." Segawa said as Takayama's expression remained emotionless.

"And there was nothing on her?" Takayama asked as Segawa nodded his head.

"What about the man with her?" he asked as Segawa change data files.

"Naruto Uzumaki age 21..." Segawa said as he continued to read off information off the pad.

"Move onto his connection with her" Takayama said his voice somewhat agitated while Segawa let out a cough.

"Sorry sir, from the police records he was found with her, and although there is no information on their relation's it is often believed that they are a couple, and at some cases it is believed he is the father of her child, although this is mostly speculation. But he dose act protective enough of them to make it seem to be actual fact, NSWF's Child Welfare Ministry has gotten enough bills from people like the officers that he beat sensless to prove that." Segawa stated as he continued to read the information off the data-pad, sounding somewhat amused at the last part.

"Anything else?" Takayama asked.

"Nothing except for that, everything else is unknown, although he has been known to have a short temper as well as being highly talented in pakour, but aside from that, nothing else is known." Segawa finished.

Takayama took a few moments to process what he had learned, not being able to figure out why the Witchblade had chosen a wielder now, and why it had handed a fraction of it's power over to that man.

"Segawa, go check on them, and make sure that they are treated with a warm welcome in the morning, something tells me I don't want them as enemies." Takayama said as Segawa bowed, before leaving the room.

**With Rihoko:**

"End of the road kid." Tozawa told Rihoko as the car stopped in front a building called Mary's Gallery, a dining bar.

"Where are we?" Rihoko asked.

"My office, and sleeping quarters." Tozawa said as he left the car, followed by Rihoko.

As he opened the front door Rihoko saw two people both women, one was holding sticks quickly hid behind them when she saw Rihoko, and the other was watching the television, before she turned it off.

"How's it going Mariko?" Tozawa greeted waving his hand, but Mariko didn't look happy.

"Alright what's with the kid?" Mariko said while looking at Rihoko.

"Please to meet you ma'am." Rihoko said with a slight bow.

"Start explaining." Mariko said simply as Yusuke scratched the back of his head, taking a seat as he began to explain what had happen in recent events.

After a while of explaining Mariko felt a headache come on as she rubbed her temples.

"So let me get this straight you just find this small girl, and the best thing for her is to bring her here?" Mariko said as Tozawa took a drink of his beer, Rihoko quietly eating a plate of food.

"That's right. To be fair, there wasn't many options." Tozawa answered simply putting down his drink.

"Are you MENTAL OR SOMETHING ?" Mariko shouted causing Rihoko to jump in her seat, and almost drop her food.

"Well what was I supposed to do? Any other place would have gotten me unwanted headache especially when I'm so close to cracking this case." Tozawa said as Mariko handed him another drink.

"Ah geez, when are you gonna give up that little reporter dream, you take pretty pictures, and that's it." Mariko said as she pointed to the picture of the wall "Stick to what your good at" she finished.

"But this is the scoop that'll make my career, and when the story breaks I can pay you all the payment that I owe you." Tozawa said as Mariko crossed her arms in annoyance.

"I'd be happy if had the payment now" Mariko said as Tozawa let out a sigh "Naomi back me up on this." she said as Naomi hid behind her straws.

"Great, let me get this straight, you say your a fortune teller, but yet your to shy to talk to anybody! GET A NEW JOB!" Mariko shouted as Naomi pushed her head down further into her straws.

"As for you kid, you're staying over at my place, no way are you staying with this idiot, and then in the morning I'm taking straight to the NSWF child welfare center." Mariko said as Rihoko grabbed onto onto the counter.

"No you can't take me there! Please, I have to find my mom and dad!" Rihoko pleaded.

"Sorry not listening, come on time for bed." Mariko replied only to have Rihoko run under a table, and grab onto it fiercely.

"Please I'll do anything! I can help you cook, or do the dishes, just please let me stay!" Rihoko further protested as Mariko got angry.

"No way! Do you know how much trouble I could get in with child welfare? Now come on enough of this." Mariko said as she began to try to pull Rihoko away from the table.

Try, and try as she might she couldn't get the small little girl to let go, only getting the table to move instead before finally letting go of her.

"Fine stay there see what I care! but one way or another you going to the welfare center first thing in the morning!" Mariko shouted as she went back to the counter.

"Geez you sure know how to pick'em" Mariko told Tozawa as he got off his chair.

"Yup she's a gutsy one, standing up to you, anyway your problem now, beside look at the time gotta get to sleep, big day tomorrow, scope of the century, start of luxury." Tozawa said as he began to leave.

"Your luck will abandon you in the afternoon." Naomi spoke as Tozawa continued to make his way out.

"Now that's a cheery thought before bed, good night everybody" Tozawa said as he left.

The bar remained opened for a few more minutes before Mariko, and Naomi went to sleep with Rihoko still clutching onto the table despite her sleeping form.

Then Mariko came, kneeling down she looked at Rihoko sleeping.

"Cute, but stubborn" Mariko said as she pulled out a blanket, and put it over Rihoko.

"Night kid." Mariko said as she left.

Rihoko continued to sleep peacefully, dreaming of being reunited with her mom and dad.

She also hoped that where ever they were together, and were looking for her as well.

**With Masane and Naruto:**

Both Masane and Naruto were both sleeping on a couch with Masane resting her head on his shoulder, yet unnoticed by both the small silver bracelet like object that held a red gem in the middle, now on Masanes right wrist, began to glow red.

This light did not disturbed Masane, but it caused Naruto to move slightly as a yellow light emerged from his wrist, bothering him.

Suddenly Masane's bracelet released various tendrils that grabbed onto Naruto's wrist causing the yellow light to grow.

His breathing soon began to increase as the tendrils moved up towards his head.

**Inside of Naruto's mind:**

Naruto looked around and saw nothing but darkness and endless void of it yet as he continued to look he felt a shiver go up his spine as if something was watching him.

_**"gEt Up..."**_ A voice said through the darkness, as he looked around searching for the origin of said voice.

"Who is that?Show your self!" Naruto yelled out as he looked into the the darkness.

_**"GeT uP...PrOtECt tHeM..."**_ the voice said once more ignoring Naruto's response.

"Who? Protect who?" Naruto asked as he waited for it's response.

**_"ReLEaSe mE!"_** The voice shouted causing everything to begin shaking, as tendrils shot out of the darkness grabbing Naruto before they began to envelope him.

"Hey What the hell is this! Let me-MMF!" Naruto was cut off as the tendrils reached his face, until all he could see was a single bright yellow light, that was covered as a tendril blocked his vision.

**Back to reality:**

Naruto quickly shot from the couch, in turn letting Masane fall onto the couch with a small tub.

_"What the hell was that? Was it just a dream?"_ Naruto thought as he ran his hand through his hair, before he felt something strange on his right wrist, it was the silver bracelet with a yellow gem in the middle of it.

_"The hell this come from?"_ Naruto thought as observed the bracelet, before Masane raised herself from the couch sitting down on it as she stretched slightly.

"Why did you wake me Naruto? I was having such a good dream...Wait Naruto? When did you get here?" Masane asked as she looked around and released that she was not in jail, but more like a luxury suite, with various expensive-looking furniture, and a great view of Tokyo.

"Wait...don't you remember anything from last night?" Naruto asked as she gave him a confused look, and simply shrugged.

"Not really...All I remembered was that I was taken to jail after...oh god Rihoko!What happened to her?" Masane replied as she looked at Naruto, worry filling her widening eyes.

"I-I don't know, but as long as she's with that child welfare she'll be okay." Naruto replied as Masane looked away.

"I guess, I-I just wish I could have done more." Masane said.

At that, Naruto started laughing.

"I don't see what's so funny, I'm trying to serious with you!" Masane said as anger began swelling inside as Naruto began to stop laughing.

"Hahaha..Sorry It's just that you've done so much for her it's funny, for starters, you hijacked a police car, and flipped the bird to the speed limit. You chased the car Rihoko was in, and didn't let anything stand in you way because she means so much to you. In fact the one thing that stopped you was that curb." Naruto said as Masane began to slightly blush.

"You're a great mother...Hell, mother of the year, you don't give yourself enough credit." Naruto with a large grin as Masane began blushing immensely.

"You really think so?" Masane replied as she continued to blush, pushing both of her index fingers together.

As he watched her do this, he couldn't help but feel that he had seen this all before, just couldn't put his finger on it.

Just then he heard the door open, turning his attention to who entered a man who was wearing a rather fancy looking suit and glasses, and two plates with a sandwich and a glass of orange juice that reminded both Naruto and Masane that they hadn't eat in awhile.

"Oh I see that you two are awake, well that's good I brought you two breakfest." the man said as he placed the plates of food on a table as Naruto, and Masane both looked at the plates with hunger in their eyes, just then Masane managed to pull herself away from the food.

"Hey where we are?" Masane asked as Naruto began eating his food like there was no tomorrow.

"You are in Doji group industries headquarters, VIP room" the man said as Naruto stopped eating, swallowing the bits of food he had eaten.

"Hey, I heard about you people, aren't you one of the biggest corporations in the world?" Naruto said as the man nodded.

"Yes, and allow he to introduce myself Hiroki Segawa, at your service." Segawa said with a bow as Naruto stood with a large grin, and his hand stuck out.

"Naruto Uzumaki! Pleasure to meet you." Naruto said as Segawa shook his hand.

"Likewise, and please finish you food, Director Takayama wishes to meet you two as soon as possible." Segawa said as he left the room, both of them raising an eyebrow at the comments.

"I don't like him." Naruto stated as Masane gave him a puzzled look.

"What do you mean? He seemed like an okay kind of guy, besides it looked like you got along with him nicely." Masane said as she took a bite of her sandwich.

"Ever heard of acting, besides he looks like the kind of guy that'll stab you in the back at the first chance he gets." Naruto said as he sat down, and continued eating his sandwich.

"Whatever, you are so paranoid" Masane said with a small laugh as she drank her orange juice.

Naruto swallowed his food before responding to Masane "I'm not paranoid, I'm cautious...big difference." Naruto said with his own smile.

Later Segawa had returned and they had begun to take the elevator upwards to the roof top.

"So where exactly are we going anyway?" Masane asked as Naruto nodded in agreement.

"Yeah what's so important about us?" Naruto asked as he leaned against the elevators wall, his hand behind his head.

"Don't worry we will fill you in on route to the next facility" Segawa said as the elevator opened, letting the sound of the hard winds fill the air.

They saw a white helicopter on the roof, alongside a man that looking at both of them.

As they walked towards the helicopter both Masane, and Naruto kept their eyes narrowed on the man, as they finally met him face to face.

Naruto noticed that the man was slightly shorter than him, but not by much, he had a serious expression that was near emotionless, he had a small scar that went over his right eye.

"So you must be this director fella, thought that you'd be older looking." Naruto said with a serious tone in his voice.

"That's right." Takayama responded quickly as they entered the helicopter, before it took off the building.

"I'm told that you can tell us what this is all about." Masane said as Takayama nodded.

"You've brought an end to our search." Takayama said as Masane looked at him confusing, along with Naruto.

"What do mean by that?" Masane asked as Takayama took a drink of a water bottle.

"We were searching for that," Takayama said pointing at the bracelet on Masane's wrist

"Do you remember what you did last night by any chance?" Takayama asked her, causing her to have a sort of flashback, but she couldn't really describe anything that she saw.

"No..not really" Masane responded as Takayama looked at Naruto.

"Do you at all?" Takayama asked Naruto who simply let out a sigh.

"Kinda hoping you would forget about me...Alright yeah I remember what happened, after I knocked out the cops that arrested me, got knocked out by this hunk of junk with a psycho switch, a-and I don't know what I saw." Naruto said as he looked at Masane "It was you, but not you, you had some strange armor, and you were fighting some creature. After you killed it you ran, and I followed then the rest is history" Naruto finished as Takayama nodded.

"It's the Witchblade." Takayama said as Naruto raised an eyebrow at the name.

"Witchblade? Doesn't sound very nice." Naruto spoke while looking at the bracelet.

"You have no idea...The Witchblade is he most powerful weapon on the entire planet. It's has existed since before human history, and since then countless battle have been waged in secrecy in order to gain control of it, yet only a woman could wield it. Finally it fell it Doji's possession were it was being examined, but something happened that we could have never seen coming. It was stolen by NSWF, they wanted it for themselves, and when we went to retrieve The Witch-blade somehow awoke. It's awakening unleashed a devastating event now know as the Great quake." Takayama said as Masanes eye's widened while Naruto gripped his teeth in anger.

"So you responsible for that day! All those innocent people dead!" Naruto said as he reached over, and grabbed Takayama by his collar pulling him to his face.

"How is my fault exactly?" Takayama asked his tone the same as before as Naruto only grew angrier.

"You knew what you were dealing with! You should have know that someone might have wanted something that powerful! You should have known that something that powerful shouldn't have been messed with!" Naruto shouted in anger increasing his grip on Takayama. Yellow light starting to shine from the band on his wrist.

"Please there's no need for viole-" Segawa started to say.

"Shut up Four eyes!" Naruto shouted interrupting Segawa as he kept his eyes on Takayama.

"Let him go Naruto, that's enough" Masane said as she pulled on his orange hoodie.

Naruto looked at Masane, calming down in the process before he turned, and released Takayama, falling back into his chair.

"So just what do you want with me, or rather us?" Masane asked as Takayama readjusted his tie.

"I want to test the capabilities of the Witchblade, and Excalibur first hand." Takayama said as Naruto looked at him strange of the _'Excalibur'_ comment.

"Wait, I Thought the Witchblade was a single weapon what's this Excalibur nonsense?" Naruto asked Takayama worried about the response that he would get.

"That bracelet on you wrist." Takayama said pointing at the bracelet on Naruto's wrist that was almost identical to the one that Masane had except it had a yellow gem in the middle.

"Before you ask I don't know how it got on you to begin with. We could only theorize that the a small portion of the Witchblade left it, and bonded to you" Takayama said as Naruto looked at the bracelet on his wrist, and swore that he felt it pulsing.

"Thanks, but no thank I think I speak for both of use when I say we don't want to be your guinea pigs." Masane said as Takayama's grew even more serious.

"What about your daughter Rihoko then? If you two comply with the test I assure you both that NSWF will no longer bother you. In addition I will give you a job that''ll utilize the Witchblade's capabilities for the benefit of Tokyo." Takayama said as both Masane and Naruto looked at each other, they hadn't even thought about Rihoko, and if Takayama was a man of his word, this job he had could help them quite a bit.

"Do you know where Rihoko is?" Naruto asked as Takayama shook his head in response.

"No, but I have my men searching for her." Takayama responded as Naruto and Masane both looked at each other.

"We'll do it" they both said at the same time as the Helicopter stopped.

Suddenly they saw both Segawa's and Takayama's chairs move backwards, then a wall coming down in front of them as the Helicopter released the area that Masane and Naruto were currently sitting in, now resemble a pod.

Then suddenly the entire area that the pod was on suddenly began to descend into the ground.

"Hey what the hell?" Naruto said as he punched the wall, managing to crack it slightly.

"What's going on let us out of here! Please let us out" Masane pleaded to no avail as they continued to descend further inside.

"That son of a bitch! When I get my hands on him-" but Naruto couldn't finish his sentence as another wall opened this time behind them.

Seeing no other way out, they both left the pod, and saw what looked like a recreation of some Tokyo buildings, at the sight of this Naruto let out a fast whistle.

"Damn...money really isn't a problem for this guy is it" Naruto said as he continued to observe before he felt something tingle up his spin, Masane feeling it too.

Suddenly he watched as mist begun to encompass Masane's form as her bracelet let out a red light, before her armor appeared on her, suddenly a pain shot through his right wrist.

Looking down, he saw his bracelet begin emitting a dazzling yellow light, he grasped his wrist attempting to hold back whatever was trying to get out, then Masane grasped his hand pulling it away from his bracelet.

"Masane what are you-MMF!" Naruto was cut off as Masane crashed her lips against his, causing Naruto's eyes to widened and his body to tense, until he finally gave into the kiss.

Then Masane pulled away licking her thumb sensually "Naruto...just let it go. You don't need to be in control righ now." Masane's words kept repeating in Naruto's head before he smiled and nodded.

"All right you win." Naruto said looking at his bracelet which began to glow an even brighter light as the same mist began to encompass Naruto. When it faded , Masane...or rather the Witchblade...grinned in delight.

Excalibur had awakened.


	5. Chapter 5

"Gotta say Masane, this actually feels great, should've listened to you a lot sooner." Naruto said with a smile as he curled his fists taking in all of the new senses granted to him by the blade.

"Not to mention that it looks great on you too" Masane said licking her lips in the process.

Naruto, looked away bashfully, his cheeks tented pink. To distract her from it, Naruto asked Masane something "Do you know why I got teamed up with Excalibur?"

She wants you," Masane said, "A…partner.", the "she" being the Witchblade of course.

Naruto blinked and his brow knit. "I figured as much. Excalibur here's been kind enough to give me the idea…but I just needed to know for certain."

"You're the one she's been searching for." Masane's eyes glowed just a little. "We've been searching for you for centuries. One strong enough to face our power." The blond's brow rose. "We have long sought one who could be our equal…our counterpart."

Naruto shook his head. "A king to your queen. Again, Excalibur hinted at it."

"Yes," the semi-possessed Masane encouraged. "You have survived the test laid upon you, bonding with the weapon long ago willed into creation for our other half. Long have we carried part of our love within us. For time immemorial we have searched…and only now found you…" Masane was still there, but under the influence of the Witchblade. Either way, through the bleed over, she could understand what it was saying, and what it wasn't. What it was feeling.

She could see just a little of what it saw.

And she could see the attraction.

Naruto shrugged "I'm flattered, but there's nothing unique about me. I'm just an ordanary guy that was in the right place at the right time six years ago when you bonded with Masane."

The Witchblade looked at him incredulously, then laughed aloud "Naruto...if you were at all ordanary, my king never would have exposed himself to you in the aftermath of the quake that my power triggered. You don't remember your past, so how can you say there might not have been anything about you BEFORE your life with Masane and Rihoko that would have made him notice you?"

Naruto paused, thinking about that for a moment and nodded. "True. And when Excalibur's up and about, I get these flashes...places, people...I _think_ they're my memories of before I met Masane and Rihoko, but I'm not sure. And for some reason, I know how to fight better because of them."

The Witchblade smiled at him reassuringly. "It'll come back then, my king's aware of knowlage being useful to a host, after all, someone that can only blindly swing a sword is always weaker that someone with training to actually fight with one. So he'll see to your memory's restoration if it can help protect others. The pieces are there somewhere...you just need to know where to look and then wait for them to be put into a picture. Wish I could say the same for Masane. From what he tells me, there's some kind of backup in your mind that Masane dosen't have, so I can't help her that way."

"You know, I can't help but wonder where you two came from." Naruto said. "Like you said, knowlage is useful. So how can we understand you two if all we know about you is that you can be used to fight?" Naruto said.

The Witchblade frowned "That's for another time, I'm afraid. You have to understand, our ability to choose who we bond with is to keep it so that not just anyone who has us is able to use our power, but that also makes our origins a touchy subject. Knowing too much too soon is a risky thing, and if we told just anyone about ourselves...well, the Great Quake gives you an example if the wrong people knew how to fully replicate our power."

Naruto saw the truth of that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So that makes a need-to-know basis manditory. Got it."

The witchblade nodded and ended her possession of her bearer.

Masane held a hand to her head and shook it

Their attention however was pulled away from each other as they sensed something coming towards them, something rather large in numbers, and whatever it was it wasn't friendly.

"Looks like fun is coming to us...tell you what Masane if you manage to take down more of whatever the hell is coming after us, I'll give up ramen for a week" Naruto said with a grin as Masane was intrigue.

"And if you win?" Masane asked suggestively as Naruto grin grew slightly.

"Why don't we talked about that part later" Naruto said before he jumped away into the air, Masane following in suit.

While in the air he got a better look at what they were up against, it was a group of tank like objects that moved towards their direction rather quite quickly.

"iWeapons? Douji's baby. Heh, lets not keep then waiting." Naruto said with a grin as he plummeted towards the street causing a huge crater to form, and a dust cloud to set in, all the while Masane shook her head slightly.

_"Men.."_ thought Masane, rolling her eyes as she followed his lead landing on a building top, near where Naruto had landed.

As the dust rolled away the tank turned their attention to Naruto, who stood in the center of the crater grinning the entire time, as the gem of his gauntlet glowed.

"HERE'S JOHNNY!" Naruto shouted as he ran at the iWeapons, which had begun to fire at him, missing him entirely as he jumped from the crater, and over to one of the iWeapons.

Grabbing the bottom with his left arm he lifted the iWeapon to it's underside were he delivered a kick that sent it flying backwards, were it crashed into another iWeapon.

Quickly another iWeapon shot at him, managing to strike him on his right shoulder, thought it only pushed back his shoulder a bit.

Naruto shrugged his shoulder, before turning to the tank that shot him only to see it become impaled by various red tendrils that torn the tank to shreds.

Then Masane landed on its rubble looking at him with a sultry smile before she jumped towards another iWeapon, with Naruto returning the smile with his own grin.

He looked another iWeapon that fired at him, only to step aside from the shot blowing up as it hit a wall before turning his attention to his blade.

_"Let's just how much you can blow up."_ Naruto thought to himself, the blade responding by glowing a bright yellow light as it sang joyous songs of battle in his mind, and he couldn't help but share that feeling a little. For some reason, a good fight always helped him to think clearer.

Cocking the blade back, he ran towards to tank, moving faster than he thought possible, all the while blocking the iWeapon's shots with his left arm.

Then when he reached the iWeapon, he jumped into the air hoisting his blade upward as well, before bring it down upon the iWeapon tearing through as though it were made of butter.

Then the iWeapon exploded causing Naruto to be sent back into the air to which he promptly landed on the ground with a large 'thud' sound.

"Damn guess I should watch for when they exploded" Naruto said to himself as he pushed himself up from the ground feeling a sharp pain from his left shoulder.

He looked to see a piece of metal struck deep inside of his arm, a white substance replacing his blood as it oozed out of the wounded.

He quickly grabbed the metal piece before pulling out from himself, letting out a grunt of pain, as a small squirt of white blood followed.

Naruto examined the metal piece which was covered in the white liquid he figured was his blood, recalling that a substance called "Oxycyte" was a white, artificial blood developed to perform the same function as haemoglobin, which is found in red blood cells and absorbs and releases oxygen and that it carried oxygen fifty percent more effectively than red blood cells. Since the artificial blood cells were instead white in color rather than red, they literally gave the blood a white colour (and therefore its user a pale complexion), hence the substance's name. Then he turned his attention to his wound only to see it close up in a few seconds, leaving no sign that he was ever hurt.

Naruto narrowed his eyes, that was faster then normal, even counting his 'healing factor'as he liked to call it, which in a matter of hours would heal the injure, whereas it would take several months by any normal person. Thinking on it, his healing was one of the biggest things he wondered about, he had never, to his knowledge, ever gotten sick in his entire life. Even when he asked the doctors about this they had little to no answers for him only possible explanations such as an over abundance of white blood cells, a sort of mutation, or simply he just was extremely healthy.

He looked at the claw gauntlet with the yellow gem in it and grinned. "Hmm...so you've boosted my healing? Nice. Now let's take care of them, Partner." Naruto said turning his head to the side as more iWeapons approached him.

Meanwhile as this was happening, Masane herself was dealing with several iWeapons, grabbing one by its cannon, hoisting up into the air before launching towards another, the sound of metal hitting metal filling the room, followed by an explosion.

She ran towards another, jumping as she dodged its attack before she ran past it's side, extending her blade outward as it cut straight through the iWeapons stopping several feet behind it to see it blow up.

Jumping onto a nearby building, she saw several explosions in the distance, that she figured were being caused by her Naruto, not minding that she called Naruto hers.

She watched as he jumped from a cloud of black dust, watching his body moving like a savage monster, one that brought out a savage desire within herself, licking her lips as she watched him descend onto the ground, losing sight of him as an explosion from another iWeapon caught her attention.

"Aww, and it was such a good sight, but I guess I can have fun with you." Masane pouted as she jumped from the building, and into the air where she looked down at the iWeapon before sending multiple red tendrils from her hair onto the iWeapon, impaling it various time as it exploded, before she landed on its remains.

Suddenly however she was blasted forward from its ruins, by a shot from an iWeapon.

Stabbing her blade into the ground in an attempt to halt her movement, only to crash into a nearby building. causing most of its frontal area to crumble.

As she pushed some of the rubble from her, her gauntlet glowed it bright red once more, almost demanding she destroy the iWeapon, to which she licked her lips before rushing at it.

As she rushed at it, the iWeapon fired a shot at her managing to strike her in the shoulder though at this point she only had the feeling to destroy, more specifically the iWeapon.

When reached it she pierced her blade through its frontal part, before pulling it out, and punching it with everything that she had.

With every punch she felt her blood run faster, and faster. Her breathing began to increase as she continued to punch the machine, and it began to feel akin to pleasure.

And that was what she compared it to using the witch blade brought her pleasure, the feeling of crushing her enemies made her spine tingle.

Then her thoughts began to drift off to Naruto, and her entire body began to tingle.

She wouldn't admit to anyone but herself, but she enjoyed see his more animalistic side take hold of him, to see him crush anyone that stood in his way like they were nothing, and now that he had unleashed Excalibur, she saw it unrestrained.

That was not say that he didn't have other qualities she found attractive, but with the Witchblade, all other qualities seemed insignificant.

_"Perhaps the Witchblade's true gift is freedom..."_ Masane thought with a grin, before she was caught off guard by the explosion of the iWeapon, which sent her flying into the ground.

The blast was stronger then she had expected her vision began to blacken, despite her attempts to keep them open, and soon enough her eyes closed with one thought passing through her mind.

_"Rihoko"_ Masane thought as she closed her eyes...

...Masane slowly woke up to the sound of beeping, looking around she saw that she was in a bed, and that she had and IV line in her arm, and a monitor checking her heartbeat.

"Thank god you're awake! I thought you were dead." a voice she immediately recognized as Naruto's said, while he himself was sitting in a chair right next to her with one of his famous grins plastered on his face.

"N-Naruto what happened?" Masane asked as she pushed herself from her bed.

"Well, at first it was nice, you and me were taking those moving trash cans like nothing, then you snapped at one, kept attacking it until it blew up right in front of your face, next thing I know the iWeapons stop attacking, and you're on the ground out cold, then Takayama told me to carry you here, so I pulled up a chair and watched over you" Naruto said with a grin as Masane looked at him.

"How long have I been out?" she asked as Naruto raised his head to think.

"About an hour give or take. Oh, and Takayama want to see us something about his job." Naruto said as Masane stood up stretching a bit.

"So why did you kiss me?" Naruto said with a smirk as Masane blushed, looking away from him as he snickered a bit.

"I didn't mean to, t-the Witchblade made me do it, who would ever want to kiss an idiot like you?" Masane replied, still blushing as Naruto still grinned.

"You do, as your blush is so kindly pointing out. Now as much as I would love to stay and tease you, we have a job interview to attend to so let's go" Naruto said as he left out the door, Masane following after him.

Though something didn't sit right with her a few moments ago she remembered.

"Hey what's with you? First you hate Takayama, now you're okay with the guy" Masane asked as Naruto placed his hands behind his head.

"I still don't like him, but just because I don't like him doesn't mean I'm about to brood over it like some prick, If he's got a job that pays well, I'm taking it, god knows we need it, so I can put off whatever personal feeling I have, and besides he can tell us were Rihoko is." Naruto said as Masane smiled softly.

_"That's just like him, always putting our needs first."_ Masane thought as she continued to follow him.

**With Rihoko:**

"Yes this is her...All right, thank you please come soon." Mariko said as she hung up the phone.

"Alright Rihoko, don't get comfortable, the nice people from NSWF will be here in about thirty minutes." Mariko called out, getting no response.

"Look, I know your mad, but I did tell you that you that I would call them to come-" Mariko stopped her talking as she walked into the drinking room only find Rihoko gone from where she had been staying.

Letting out a sigh, Mariko walked to the counter were she got ready for another day's work.

"Take care kid..." Mariko spoke to herself.

_"Alright, now it time to find mom and dad"_ Rihoko thought to herself as she walked on the sidewalk, stopping to let a few cars pass.

As she quickly ran to the other side of the road, she continued to think on where they might be. Then she remembered what they had told her the day they had arrived in Tokyo: that if they ever got lost to meet up at the Tokyo tower.

With that in mind, she quickly set off towards Tokyo Tower.

_"Don't worry mom and dad, we'll be together soon, believe it!"_ Rihoko thought to herself giggling inwardly at the use of Naruto's catchphrase.

**Back with Masane and Naruto:**

"You two performed better than I had expected." Takayama said looking out the window the destruction Naruto and Masane had caused.

"Glad we passed on your little test, but don't you think that you could have warned us?" Questioned Masane as she crossed her arms.

"Yes, but then you wouldn't have been as ready." Takayama responded causing Naruto to let out a sigh.

"Look, pleasing stopping talking in enigmatic phrases just tell us what is this job that you have offering?" Naruto asked as Takayama turned away from the window.

"Tell me how much do you really know about the great quake?" Takayama asked them only to have Naruto shrug.

"All I know is that I woke up after it happened, found Masane, and years later, I'm here." Naruto said as Takayama took a deep breath.

"As you two known the Witchblade caused the great quake, which in turn destroyed much of Tokyo, but in addition, creatures known as Ex-cons were released as well." Takayama responded grabbing both Masane's and Naruto's attention.

"Just what are these Ex-cons?" questioned Masane.

"Ex-Cons were mechanical monsters manufactured by the Douji Group. Similar to the Witchblade and Excalibur, the Ex-cons lust for combat, and can camouflage themselves in a human form. You should know what they're like, you fought one the day the Witchblade awakened." Takayama said, looking at Masane as he said the last part.

"Is that what that thing was?" Masane responded, remembering the day back at the prison.

"Yes, and that is the job I want you two to do: find an Ex-con and kill it. If you do you'll bo be payed a substantial amount of money." Takayama said as Naruto laughed a bit.

"Wait so you're us, paying to basically destroy stuff, right?" Naruto asked as Takayama nodded before reaching out his hand towards him.

"You've got a deal!" Naruto said as Takayama shook his hands, Masane sighing as a result...it looked like she wouldn't have a quiet life after all.

"Good, now we located one in a nearby area, Segawa will take you to it, the rest is up to you." Takayama stated.

"Alright, now that this job thing is over with can you tell us if you've found Rihoko yet?" Masane asked as Naruto nodded.

"We're doing all we can, but no reports have come in about your daughter I'm afraid, don't worry, we'll find her." Takayama replied. Masane nodding in response, hiding her uneasiness.

Then Segawa came in from the door, holding a notepad.

"I'm sorry if I'm interrupting something, but your ride is ready Ms. Amaha, and Mr. Uzumaki." Segawa said calmly as Naruto and Masane left the room before Segawa followed them.

Then within minutes, they had left the base in search of the Ex-con.

"So how will we known when we see this Ex-con?" Naruto asked Segawa.

"Well we figured that sense the Ex-cons can sense the Witchblade and Excalibur, it would make sense that you could as well." replied Segawa as Naruto nodded.

Naruto then looked outside his window, noticing that it was now night as Tokyo's lights began to brighten up the city, the colors synchronizing in harmony with one another. Then in the middle of it all Tokyo Tower stood proud, and tall.

Before he could further admire it he felt a pulse go through his body.

"Masane, did you feel that too?" Naruto asked.

"Yeah, just like at the prison." Masane replied as Segawa opened the doors indicating Naruto and Masane to jump out.

Naruto wasted no time jumping out, he briefly felt the rush of air hit his face, before he turned into his Excalibur mode, and landed on a nearby building.

Soon he was followed by Masane who landed next to him, as they did they saw the Ex-con it looked like some fat, homeless man, before a blue light came from his arm.

They watched as the man changed, his body shifted in no way a human should have been able, before it change into something resembling the iWeapons they had fought earlier.

"What a weakling...He's all yours Masane." Naruto said as he sat down.

"You think I'm weak, is that it Naruto?" Masane responded in a fake hurt tone.

"No, its just that thing is a weakling. If we both attacked it, then the fun would be over before it even started, so I'm letting you have him." Naruto said as Masane grinned.

However their moment was cut short as the Ex-con launched some sort of pincher at Masane wrapping around her arms, before it dragged itself onto her.

"I'll make you nice, and warm nice and-" the Ex-con didn't get to finish his sentence as Masane's blade pierced it through it's body, spilling it's white blood over her blade.

"Sorry your not my type." Masane said before kicking the creature down the building where is crashed into the ground, exploding in flames as it did so.

"What did I tell you?" Naruto said as Masane licked some of the creature's white blood from her blade.

"Your right Naruto, that was too easy. I hope that future Ex-cons can give us more of a challenge." Masane said before Naruto stood up, and walked to the edge of the building.

"Let's go to Tokyo tower, Masane." Naruto said before he jumped from the building landing on a smaller one, Masane following behind him, attempting to keep up with him.

"Why are we going to Tokyo tower, Naruto?" Masane asked him, all the while following him.

"I felt her Masane, Rihoko, I felt her she is close by" Naruto said as Masanes eyes widened.

"Rihoko..." She said to herself, moving faster as a result , passing even Naruto.

**With Rihoko:**

Rihoko was scared she had waited at the Tokyo tower for quite some time now, and her mother and father had yet to show up.

She sat at the steps to the tower, wondering what happened to them, or even if they had forgotten her.

As she stood to leave was stopped by a shout.

Turning around, it got stronger until she could hear what was being said

"Rihoko!"

It was then that Naruto and Masane came running towards her, her mother picking her up from the ground while Naruto stood there, and smiled.

No words had been said the entire time, none could be said to describe the emotions they had all felt to be reunited once more.

Soon a light flashed on coming from the helicopter that Masane, and Naruto had come from.

"Come on Rihoko, let's go." Masane said as the helicopter descended on nearby land.


	6. Chapter 6

"Wow this place looks so nice! Mister Takayama sure is nice!" Rihoko exclaimed as she looked around the hotel room that Takayama had paid for them.

It was an extremely nice room with two large beds, a nice view, a bathroom, and a flat screen television.

"And the best part is Mister Takayama gave you two a job." Rihoko added, turning her attention to Masane and Naruto then just as fast turning to the room once more.

Quickly, she put down her backpack, and ran to one of the large beds, and begins to jump an down laughing happily as she did so.

_"Good to see she hasn't lost touch with her inner-child."_ Naruto thought to himself with a smile as he took off his shoes, and laid down on one of the beds.

"Man, does this feel nice, nothing like having a nice soft bed." Naruto sighed as he stretched his arms and legs out, his head resting on one of the pillows.

Then as Naruto began resting, a large rumbling sound was heard.

"Ah man, I forgot I haven't eaten anything since morning." Naruto said as he pushed himself from his bed, holding his rumbling stomach while both Masane and Rihoko laughed at this. He did have a point though, they themselves were hungry as well.

"Yeah, I haven't eaten anything in awhile...hey I know lets order room service" Masane suggested Rihoko nodding in approval.

"Yeah, we don't have any money, how are we going to pay?" Naruto asked as his stomach growled once more.

"We'll just put it on that Takayama guy's credit card, he is paying for this room after all" Masane said as she grabbed a nearby phone, and began to order room service.

"Clever girl." Naruto smirked slyly, followed by another growl, causing him to fall back on his bed while holding his stomach.

"Hurry please." Naruto begged as Rihoko ran to his side.

"Come on dad, you've got to see the view from here!" Rihoko cried excited, while Naruto merely turned his head to the side.

"Hey Rihoko did you give Naruto his headband back yet?" Masane asked, Naruto pushing his head up from his pillow.

"Oh yeah!" Rihoko said, grabbing her pack, before checking inside of it, and pulling out the folded headbanded.

Rihoko handed it to Naruto, a smile plastered on her face, as Naruto grasped the headband, and unfolding the black cloth, revealing the metal part of the head band.

It was a rectangle shaped, piece of polished silver metal without a scratch upon it, in its middle it had some sort of strange spiral-arrow symbol that resembled a leaf.

Whatever it was, Naruto was glad to have it back in his possession, because while it might have seemed to be a worthless piece of cloth and metal, to Naruto it was the only thing in the world that gave him any insight of who he had been before the Great Quake.

Smiling softly, he placed a hand of Rihoko's head, and began to ruffle it a bit.

"Thanks Rihoko I knew you would take good care of it." Naruto said with a grin, which was returned with a smile from Rihoko.

"It's the least I could do, you did take care of mom after all, and now we're together again." Rihoko said as Naruto laughed a bit before his stomach grumbled yet again.

"Oh mmmmaaaannnn...when is the food gonna get here?" Naruto complained as he held his stomach.

Now Naruto hated complaining, but he hadn't eaten anything since this morning, and fighting robot tanks really could wear out a guy.

"Naruto, act like a man, whining isn't gonna make the food get here any fa-" and before Masane could finish a knock was heard from the door, which was followed be Naruto jumping off the bed bolting to the door.

Opening it he was met with a butler, or someone who looked like one, who had a cart full of food.

"Here your foo-" the man was cut off as Naruto grabbed the cart pulled it inside, and slammed the door in the man's face.

He looked on the cart, and saw three fancy looking plates on it, each cover by a domed shaped cover.

Not caring which was which, he quickly grabbed one, before sitting down on one of the nearby bed, lifting the lid, and letting the delicious aroma fill his nostrils.

Inside the cart there were three large plate each filled with a roasted large steak with a raspberry glaze, topped off with some freshly baked bread on the side though he didn't quite care, he just wanted to eat!

Quickly, he grabbed his fork stabbing the meat as he brought his knife down cutting out a large cut of meat, stuffing it into his mouth, and taking a big bite of the bread literally stuffing his face.

Masane and Rihoko watched him eat, no breath in his food is more like causing both of them to sweat drop at the sight.

It a little less than five or six minutes, he had picked the bones on his plate clean of any meat.

"Mom where does it all go?" Rihoko asked in a hushed voice.

"I don't know, maybe there's a monster inside his stomach that eats it all." Masane said in the same hushed voice, both of them snickering.

"Har-de-har, you know I can hear you right? Better eat your food or else the _'monster'_ inside my stomach will eat it all!" Naruto said, patting his stomach.

Masane and Rihoko began to laugh at this, joined moments later by Naruto, before they grabbed their food, forks and knives in hand, before they began to eat, at a much slower pace than he had.

"Wow mom this is really good!" Rihoko exclaimed, taking another forkfull of meat into her mouth.

"Yeah, but I'm sure that you cook something even better, right Naruto" Masane said turning to Naruto, only to find him happily snoring, a bit of drooling coming from the side of his mouth.

"He sure does fall asleep fast." said Rihoko as Masane nodded as Rihoko walked over, picking up his plate.

"He still needs to work on his manners" sighed Rihoko shaking her head from side to side, as she took another fork of meat into her mouth.

They ate for about another fifteen minutes until the steak was gone from their plates, or they had gotten stuffed full.

"Don't worry, you have all of next morning to remind him." Masane said, placing her plate on the cart, Rihoko following suit.

"But enough about dad, tell me how did you and dad meet up after I got taken away?" Rihoko asked as Masane pondered her response, knowing she couldn't tell Rihoko about the Witchblade, and the other events that happened.

"Well, you see after Naruto was sent to jail, he met me." Masane began to explain, Rihoko raising her eyebrow in response.

"What was Naruto doing in jail, and how did you meet him there?" Rihoko asked as Masane scratched the back of her head.

"_Crap! I can't tell her about what happened, the Witchblade and Excalibur, she'd probably think I'm lying to her, but if I' didn't tell her, would I still be lying?"_ Masane asked herself before they heard some chuckles come from Naruto, gaining Rihoko's attention.

"Hehe...Masane" Naruto muttered a smile on his face.

"Mom he's dreaming about you, I wonder whats happening?" Rihoko muttered to Masane blushed a bit.

_"He's..He's dreaming..about me?"_ Masane thought to herself, restating the obvious, before another chuckle came from Naruto. She heard Rihoko's giggling, and saw her by the bed he was sleeping on, poking Naruto's sleeping face.

"Mom, look he's such as heavy sleeper." Rihoko said as she continued to poke his face, causing Masane to laugh a bit before she signaled Rihoko to get away from him.

"Come on Rihoko, let him sleep in peace, he's earned that much." Masane said just as Rihoko began to gently brush her hand against Naruto's whiskers, her eyes full of fascination.

"Whoa, Mom...come and feel dad's whiskers, they feel really weird" Rihoko said, ignoring her mother's request as she continued to touch Naruto's whiskers.

Truth be told, Masane had always wondered about his whiskers, she didn't know if they were some strange form of tattoo or if they were birthmarks. Not even Naruto knew, although he didn't give it much thought.

At first, she thought the whiskers were simply drawn on with face paint. Now that she was close enough to study them in detail, she was able to see the shallow grooves the lines made in his face.

Curiosity got the better of her and she walked over by Naruto's bed, before gently brushing her hand against his cheek feeling his whiskers.

At first, she thought the whiskers were simply drawn on with face paint. Now that she was close enough to study them in detail, she was able to see the shallow grooves the lines made in his face. Much to her surprise they had a rough texture that was complemented by the soft touch of his skin with each brush of her hand.

_"Could they be real?"_ Masane wondered to herself as she continued to touch his whiskers, she was taken aback for a moment when Naruto in her hand subconsciously nuzzled his cheek against her hand, seeking more comfort from her fingers' gentle touch. A small smile graced her lips as she resumed gently rubbing his cheek with Rihoko touching his other ones, both of them filled with fascination, that was until Naruto began to stir and shift his head from side to side. They couldn't help but smirk a little bit when she heard him started to make a low rumbling noise in his chest that sounded awfully a lot like a purr.

Both Rihoko and Masane pulled their hands from Naruto's cheeks as he pushed himself from the bed, his eyes still halfway yawning loudly before looking at Masane, and grinning in the process.

"Ma-sa-ne... " Naruto said as he pulled Masane into a gentle, but strong hug causing her to blush immensely at the feeling of Naruto's body pressing on hers, his head buried in her neck allowing his breathing to move across her skin. And in spite of herself, she couldn't help but notice Naruto had VERY nice, firm abs.

Naruto's spiky, sun-kissed blond hair only added to his affect as it moved gently across her skin, the texture of his hair was something she had never really felt before. It reminded her of a mixture between hair and fur. It, like everything else about the boy was odd, but not unpleasantly so.

"H-h-hey Naruto, l-let go!" Masane stuttered out, getting only some small snores in response before she heard the sound of a camera go off.

She saw Rihoko holding a camera, a mischievous smile on her face.

"And so a love blossoms, I wonder when I'll get my little sister or brother? Maybe it'll be twins!" Rihoko said happily, ignoring her mother's situation.

"Rihoko please hel-ahh!" Masane shouted as Naruto fell back onto the bed, his arms still around her, landing on his left side.

Masane struggled to break free of Naruto's hug, but between the bed's softness, and Naruto's gentle hug, and breathing she found it harder to struggle, and so her eyes began to doze off.

She really was tired. Between the Witchblade, the iWeapons, the Ex-cons, and that Takayama guy, she was exhausted.

_"This is really nice..."_ Masane thought to herself before she joined Naruto.

Rihoko giggled at the sight of them sleeping together, before she walked to the spare bed took off the sheets, and tossed them over.

Rihoko then turned off the lights before jumping into the bed that Masane and Naruto were at more specifically the space behind Naruto's back.

"It's a good thing this bed is so big right Mom, Dad?" said Rihoko, getting only small breathing noises from the two adults in responce.

"Good night Mom, Dad." Rihoko said, placing a kiss on both her parents' cheek.

With that, Rihoko fell back onto her pillow grabbing some blanket, before joining them.

Never before had things been so peaceful for them, but unbeknownst to them two fimilar women stood on a building far from them, watching them.

"We have located the Witchblade's bearer. Shall we proceed to capture her?" Reina asked, speaking in an earpiece.

"No, observe her for now. Wait until when she is in a less public area before attempting to recapture the Witch-blade, we don't yet know her capabilities" a voice spoke back obviously an older man.

"Yes Father." she replied.

"Oh, and Reina please do not fail me." Father said before the transmission ended.

"So doctor, what do we do?" Shiori asked, as Reina kept her eyes on their targets.

"For the moment Shiori, we wait." Reina said. Shiori nodded and walked towards Reina's side. As she did so, Reina noticed Shiori was, as she had since they had found the two bearers, Shiori was rubbing and scratching at her butt while occasionally muttering about murder under her breath, although Reina had neglected to mention this to her assistant, having summed it up to it all being a subconscious reaction to that "Thousand years of Death" thing. Personally, Reina didn't even want to think what Shiori would do if she ever got her hands on the one who had taught that male blade-bearer that giving someone a bare handed colonoscopy or prostate exam like that was an example of acceptable tactics.

"Hard to believe she's the Witchblade's bearer" Shiori said arrogantly.

"Perhaps there's a reason, for now we'll watch them both, understood Shiori?" Reina stated as Shiori nodded, before the two of them jumped away from the building top.


	7. Chapter 7

_"This is nice."_ Naruto thought to himself as he slept underneath a large tree, within a grassy plain, his hands placed behind his head.

Opening his eyes a bit, he saw the various leaves on the tree giving his shade, but also saw that the sun's bright yellow rays managed to make in through the leaves.

Then a leaf fell from the large tree, falling slowly it fell on his forehead, but he made no attempt to move it feeling it presence to be rightful for some reason.

_"Now I just need some ramen, and everything will be perfect."_ Naruto thought to himself as he laughed.

"Naruto!" yelled a young voice that Naruto immediately recognized as Rihoko. Pushing himself up from the grass, he saw Rihoko waving towards him happily with Masane standing next to her, their hands wrapped together.

"Come on Naruto!" Masane yelled to him to which he smiled softly.

"Coming!" Naruto yelled back moving down the small hill, he started to run towards him, but suddenly stopped in his tracks.

"_**Nnnaaarrruuuuutttooooo…..."**_ an ominous and raspy voice whispered, turning around his eyes widened.

The once beautiful, and life filled tree was now a mockery of what it once was, it once brown bark was now a sickly ash color, and it branches once color in green leaves now empty.

Then the sky also became the same color as the tree, quickly blocking out the bright rays of the sun, before everything became colorless.

Turning from the tree he looked over to Masane and Rihoko only to see them gone, and in their place a large forest with tree the same color as the one behind him only much larger.

Running down the now barren hill, he ran directly into the forest.

"Masane! Rihoko!" Naruto shouted, getting only silence as a reply.

Suddenly he began to hear something move, and before he could respond, he was swatted from his right side into one of the nearby trees, nearly knocking all of the air out of him, but leaving the arm that was struck in pain, and judging by the warm feeling racing down his arm. Blood.

Clenching his teeth, and holding his arm, he looked upon what had hit him, causing his eye to widen in fear.

It was a giant white snake with messy black hair and a body made up of a multitude of smaller white snakes, with long and spiky black hair, a scaled face with snake-like teeth and a long tongue, black eye markings, and a pointed chin. It was a size of which he had never knew even existed, its tongue flicker in the air as it's eyes poised on him, but before he could think on it any more, it lunge at him barring its large fangs.

Quickly, he moved out of the way allowing the snake to embed its teeth into the large tree's bark, and as it immediately began to twist and flail its body in an attempt to get free from the tree, giving Naruto enough time to escape into some nearby bushes.

Looking back over his shoulder, he saw that the area where the the snake had bitten into the tree had begun to rot, the bark turning a sickly black and blue.

Running as fast as his legs would let him, he tried his best to get as much distance between him and the gigantic snake as he could, all the while holding his injured arm, that he was certain was broken.

_"How am I in pain? This is supposed to be a dream right? Dreams aren't supposed to hurt!"_ Naruto thought to himself he continued running stopping for a bit to look at his arm, pulling up the orange sleeve of his hoodie.

_"Yep, definitely broken."_ Naruto thought to himself, he could see the bone where his elbow was located pushing out towards the skin.

Normally he would leave it to his healing factor, but he didn't have the time to wait for it to healing on its own, he still needed to put as much distance from himself and the snake.

Falling on his knees and taking a deep breath, he grabbed onto the broken arm tightly, clenching his teeth in pain, and with a strong push, he pushed the bone back into place, causing a sickening snap to echo throughout the forest, and causing him to howl out in pain. As he stayed there on his knees trying to keep his mind off the pain that coursed through him.

_"Dammit, that hurt!"_ Naruto thought to himself as he stood up, and began running away, the snake still fresh in his mind.

Running through a large bush, he kept running as fast as he could looking around to make sure that the area was safe, but also noticing that the trees began to get even larger as he ran deeper into the forest.

It also smelt like death, as if various deaths had occurred in this forest.

_"Judging by that snake I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case"_ Naruto thought to himself, just as he noticed the dryness of his throat and mouth.

"Man I could use a drink..." he said to himself, running his hand on his dry throat, as he ran through another bush, and was met with a large lake.

"A lake? Alright that's a little to convenient, but I can't really complain...dear god I'm talking to myself!" Naruto said as he kneeled down, cupping his hands into the the clear water, before he brought it up to his lips, and drank it.

Almost instantly the dryness in his throat was completely gone, replaced with freshness, and coolness of the water.

Immediately he repeated the process again, and again drinking more water.

"Man when did water ever taste this good?" Naruto said to himself as he continued to drink the clear water, with no seeming end in sight, before the sound of water moving caught his attention causing him to stop for a moment.

Narrowing his eyes he looked around the lake, the forest now an almost eerie silence, and he saw some ripples across the surface of the water.

Suddenly, his eyes widened. He turned and ran as the water split open as the giant snake lunging at him, it's fangs barred once again.

Barely missing Naruto, it's teeth struck the ground, however this did little to slow down its movement as it simply reeled back its head before it began to slither after the blond haired man.

_"Dammit, how did I not see it! Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!"_ Naruto thought to himself as he ran as fast as he could, his heart pounding so hard, and fast that he could almost hear it, only for it to be eclipsed by the sound of the trees branches be snapped away, and the leafs being ruffled.

Glancing over his shoulder he saw the snake gaining on him, seeming to laugh.

_"Dammit all...think Naruto! there has to be someway to avoid getting eaten alive!"_ Naruto thought as he continued to run looking around for any form of help or escape, before he was cut off by a tree larger than all of the other ones.

As he looked for another possible route to escape his entire body froze on him, the eerie silence of the forest upon him once more, slowly he turned around, and he was met with the looming form of the snake, now his blood went cold, and the air had become thicker, his breath slowing down as a result.

The Snake made no move, simply looming over him, it's large gold silted eyes keeping track of his every movement.

Naruto began to get fed up with it, he never liked having to wait for things, and overcoming the stiffness of his body, he curled his hands into fists.

"Come on, you overgrown worm! If you're gonna eat me, then quit stalling!" Naruto shouted raising his fists angrily.

Suddenly, the snake lunged at him its mouth opening widely as Naruto closed his eyes, waiting for whatever was going to happen next.

However, instead of the sound of his being eaten, he heard a large thunderous sound. Opening his eyes, he saw the snake move backwards, shaking its head from side to side as if it had been struck.

Then he heard the sound of stepping above him, and when he looked up, he didn't know what to make of it.

It was a human figure, that much he could make from it, but its entire body was covered in a black silhouette, the only distinguishable parts where its spikey, urchin like-hair, and the headband it wore, and from its form he could tell that it was a male.

He had a headband that looked just like the one Naruto had! What if this person knew something about him, or better yet, his past?

But before he could open his mouth to ask, the snake lunged at the shadowy figure, the snake now ignoring Naruto's presence compleatly. As though it had some kind of grudge against the shadow.

As the figure jumped at the serpent, it brought its hands together in a cross formation, before a large cloud appear encompassing it for a moment before dispersing in an instant, revealing the shadow now had several copies of itself, which all began to launch several knife-looking weapons at it.

Most impaled the snake before violently exploding, causing the snake to hiss and slither in pain before it feel to the ground with a thunderous crash.

The fight didn't end there, however, as the shadowy figure landed a few feet in front of Naruto, one of its copies moving behind it as it stretched it's arm out to the copy, which moved it's hands around the other's hand, leaving Naruto wondering as to what they were doing before he was answered as a blue sphere began to form in the original's hand.

The small sphere looked about the size of a soft ball, and it also had several swirls to it almost as if it was moving from the inside.

He then rushed at the snake, and before the snake could raise its head he struck him with the blue sphere which sent a visible wave through its body, from which it moved before slumping to the ground, dead. The shadowy figure just stood there, not moving whatsoever.

Naruto's whole body tensed up and for good reason, if this person could kill the snake that quickly without so much as getting a scratch on him, he really did not want to get on his bad side; but if this person had any ill will for him he could have just let him get eaten by the snake.

Slowly, he urged his body to move, and put on the friendliest face he possibly could, strangely as he got closer to the mysterious person, the person did not move from his spot rather, he just stood there looking at the corpse of his defeated foe.

Getting closer he saw that the person was smaller than he was, if he could guess about underneath his chest level, and had some baggy clothing.

"Umm...Hi." Naruto said nervously.

The figure quickly turned his head to him, causing Naruto's eyes to widen in shock at his appearance:

Nothing.

There were no distinguishing features on his face: no eyes, no mouth, no nose, nothing at all; he was nothing but a shadow in the form of a human, but the one thing that showed out from him was the headband.

The same headband that was made from metal, and had the same strange engraved leaf symbol on it, although a difference was Naruto's had a black cloth, while this person's was a blue variant.

"So...do you have a name?" Naruto asked. The figure stood there for a moment before nodding his head.

"Can you tell me what it is?"Asked Naruto, the figure once again stood there, but his time he did not move to indicate any sort of response.

Once again, the silence of the forest was around him, and this was getting weird.

"So...I see you have a headband..." stated Naruto as the figure grabbed the edges of his headband slightly tilting it. The shadow's posture shifted a bit more proudly.

"Yeah, I know its cool." replied Naruto, grinning this time before he reached into his pocket, grasping the cool metal of his own headband before he pulled it out of his pocket.

"I have one too, see?" Naruto said, showing his headband, as the shadow-person tilted it's head to the side, before he jumped into a random tree.

"Hey wait! Tell me, what does it mean?" shouted Naruto, but before he could get any sort of reply, the figure jumped away.

Naruto followed after him, he wouldn't let him escape, not when answers were so close to him, and was soon running as fast as when he ran from the snake he chased after the figure looking up to the large trees in order to see where he had taken off to.

As he continued to follow him he noticed that he would turn his head midway, almost as if to see if Naruto was following him.

Pushing past various bushes, and branches some which left scratches on his face which healed quickly, he stopped, and what seemed like the exit to the forest, seeing the stranger in front of an old fence, before he turned to face Naruto.

Saying nothing like before, he merely pointed to the fence, or was it past it.

Walking he stood in front of the fence and from it he could see what looked like a city!

"Thank god!" Naruto said, placing his hand on the fence before he felt some of the rust go onto his hand so he pulled back quickly; wiping the orange rust on his blue jeans.

"So what did you kn-" stopping as he turned around, and saw that the shadow-person was gone.

"Figures..." Naruto said to himself, before he tuned back to the fence, and began to climb up it, landing on the other side, however as he did, he felt a shiver run up his spin...as if he was being watched, and against his better judgement, he walked on torward to the city that the living shaow had lead him to.

"Let's see where this leads me..." Naruto said as he walked towards the city, unware of the various figures following behind him.

Naruto walked around the deserted city and shivered...this place felt creepy. And it wasn't from it being empity...it was how fimilar it all felt.

Naruto suddenly froze and then dove out to the side as something zoomed past him, right where his head had been a second ago.

As the object skid to a stop, Naruto gawked.

Like the one who had fought off the white snake, he had no face, but from the build, naruto could tell this person was male. A full-grown man in green, one-piece spandex leotard with a bowl haircut, freakishly massive eyebrows, orange legwarmers, a thick vest, and blue sandles. he wore a headband with a red cloth background around his waist like a belt.

Naruto tensed as the phantom or whatever it was turned to him as it stood up straight and put one hand behind it's back and held out the other in a 'come here' way.

Naruto narrowed his eyes, he knew a fight when he saw one.

"I'm not here to fight you." he said,

"What in the heck?!" Naruto shouted in surprise as another being suddenly lept out of nowhere and knocked the spandex-freak aside with a roundhouse kick.

With the weirdo out of the way, the entity that had drove him off turned to Naruto and walked up to him.

The being was what made out of a kind of mix of solidified liquid flame, like it was a living silhouette made out of mercury as it released silver fragments of itself as flickering flames coming off it's body before they vanished after raising a few inches off the being's body. It's eyes were glowing yellow orbs almost like a pair of headlights.

It took a moment to look at Naruto then its form shifted to make it look like a pure silver statue of Naruto in the transformed appearance he took with Excalibur activated. The eyes retained the yellow glow.

"Excalibur...? That you partner?" Naruto asked.

The silver copy of him nodded and then walked away a few steps before Excalibur turned to look over his shoulder and jerk it forward, clearly meaning for Naruto to follow.

Naruto nodded, knowing that he was with someone he trusted. Excalibur lead him through the empity streets and to an empty alleyway with only a peeling, aged, tattered poster that read "Leave or Die".

Excalbur hit the third E on the poster and the sound of stone grinding against stone rang out and the wall of the end on the alley opened up to expose a hidden tunnel.

Naruto's jaw dropped in bewilderment. How in the HELL...? Excalibur jerked his head and Naruto closed his mouth and entered after him and the hidden entrince closed behind them, as that happened, a row of torches seemed to respond to the presence of the pair and lit up anoth both sides of tha passageway, showing they were on a raised walkway that led through a labyrinth of passageways. After several minutes of walking around, Excalibur led Naruto deeper and deeper until they camt to a unmarked, knobless, sealed stone door.

Naruto found himself even more puzzled as his partner indicated the door for him.

"You...want me to open this?"

Excalibur nodded once.

Naruto walked up to the door and looked at it skeptically. There had to be a trick to getting in...but not the door itself. He was sure of that. He walked over to a wall and wiped away some dust, then chuckled when he found several Kanji written on the wall.

Naruto touched the kanji, to his shock, a mass of some kind of glowing blue energy appeared in it that looked almose like flames. As the energy covering his hand hit the kanji, they lit up and Naruto watched as the kanji form a trail leading all around the room before they all converged on the door and it opened, leading into another hallway.

This one looked more like a flooded boiler room. It was full of ankle-high water and the water seemed to float in place of its own accord as if there were a sheet of glass where the door had been and the room was dimly lit.

"A sewer?" Naruto asked, groaning. Why would Excalibur lead him to a place like this? Looking to his partner, he got a hand motion to go in.

"Aren't you coming?" Naruto asked

Excalibur shook his lead, and tried to step forward, only for a sheet of red energy to block off the threshold.

"You can't? I get it...this is ment for me alone."

Excalibur nodded again.

Naruto sighed and sloshed through the water, the red energy barrier allowing him to pass through it with immunity. As he traviled down the hallway, he noticed the air felt thicker. As if there was something giving it weight.

Naruto stopped dead at what he was face to face with.

A massive rust red fox with black around it's eyes that curled into it's long, rabbit-looking ears and almost hand-shaped frontal paws.

The fox grinned at him as if it had expected him to show up.

**"Well...hello Naruto. Been a while, six years in fact, since we've seen one another."** The fox spoke, it's gravely voice sounding like a rockslide.

"Wha-what?! What the hell are you?! And don't take this the wrong way, but a giant talking fox wound be hard to forget no matter what!" Naruto yelped.

**"Ah. Yes. A****mnesia for the past six years...that's annoying."** the fox muttered.

Naruto stared...how did this creature know him?

The fox seemed to raise an eyebrow at him, if it had any. **"Creature am I? Oh Naruto, I'm hurt."** the fox laughed. **"Still...can't blame you. No memory of me, so that's to be expected."**

His eyes widened, this thing could hear his thoughts and read his mind? "Cut to the chase will you? What did you want to meet me for? There has to be a better reason than small talk." Naruto asked, annoyed with the beating around the bush.

**"Ah...yes, straight to the point. That's still very much like you. Well then...I want you to know I can...speed up...the process of you regaining your memory. They'll all be in chronological order. However...you might not like what some of them are."**

Naruto shrugged "So? Love it or hate it, the past is the past, there's no way to change it, and only a fool would let it spoil the joys of the present and the future. But I need to know, its part of what makes me who I am and I need to get it back."

The fox chuckled as if it expected that answer **"All right...just don't say I didn't warn you Naruto."**

The fox seemed to sweat blood as red energy trailed off it's body and pooled around the blond before shooting up and wrapping around him like a straight jacket. Leaving only his head exposed.

Naruto screamed.

* * *

The two women walked towards Reina's car after a long, unsucessful search for the male they'd encountered the previouse night, seeing as the only thing they had to go on was his transformed state.

"I'll kill that guy next time I meet him..." Shiori growled.

Reina shook her head, "I doubt that, seeing as how you got beaten so easily."

Flushing in embarrassment, Shiori turned to Reina, bowing. "I won't let it happen again, Ma'am!"

"See that you don't," Reina told her as she walked past her.

_"That jackass..."_ Shiori cried mentally as she clenched her fists, _'I'll make him pay for this embarrassment.'_

"Let's get going Shiori," Reina said, causing Shiori to jump and jog towards Reina.

"Sorry Dr. Soho," Shiori replied as she got in the car.

_"He wasn't an ordinary fighter,'_ Reina thought as she started the car, thinking of Shiori's fight, "_almost like he was trained to fight from a young age and his blade amplifies his abilities." _Reina then looked to Shiori, "How would you like a rematch with him Shiori?"

"I'd like to show him what it means to fight a true bearer!" Shiori replied as Reina noded at the response.

"I believe I know of a way to find him again," Reina told Shiorim who leaned in.

"And how is that Dr. Soho?" Shiori asked innocently as she breathed in Reina's scent.

"Find the bearer of the Witchblade," Reina replied as she started her car and drove off.

* * *

Naruto panted as he awoke with a start, trying to catch his breath and his heart to slow down to normal when he felt something, and the blond scowled.

"Wonderful." he growled, opening the window and dressing then lept to the rooftops as he transformed and headed to where the Ex-con was and soon spotted it as it headed over a bridge that spanned a canal. What surprised him was it was chasing someone. A panting, brown-haired women ran across the bridge wearing a light blue dress and white dress shirt with a large purse.

"I'll make you warm," the voice of a figure behind her says as she raised her left arm to reveal a silver bracelet with a pink, eye-like gem in it that started to shine. Suddenly the women's eyes widened as she leapt to the side as the creature charged past her and over the railing and landed in the water.

Sighing the women started to walk off.

"I'll make you warm," a voice says calmly causing her to stop in her tracks and turn to see two more rather large men transform into Ex-cons.

"So warm," second adds as they draw near.

"Just keep your warmth to yourself!" another voice shouted as the women looked up as figure slashed through the two Ex-cons, landing in front of the women, causing her to fall back on her butt as the figure moved to shield her from the explosion of the two robotic monsters.

"Thank you." the women said as the smoke started clearing to reveal a transformed Naruto looking over the side of the bridge, at the sight of him, she stiffened. "You're…."

"Shit!" Naruto muttered slamming his fist on the railing, "the other one got away!"

"A male cloneblade." the women muttered, causing Naruto to look to her.

"A what?" Naruto muttered, his silver-and-blue eyes staring at her in surprise.

Covering her mouth, the women turned away and was about to run before she felt a hand on her shoulder, "Please let me go." she asked as she was turned to face the eyes of the man standing in front of her.

"Tell me," Naruto asked as he changed back to normal and showed her the bracelet on his wrist, "How do you know about this?"

"It's different," the women said as she held up her left wrist, "but its similar to a cloneblade or the Witchblade," she answered weakly, "But those can only be wielded by women."

"What I wield is not the Witchblade, but…" he muttered looking at the bracelet, at his partner, "is Excalibur, the sword of the one true king," he told her before changing back and walking away. "If I were you, I'd ditch that faux bracelt. Those Ex-cons are drawn to it like moths to a flame, and next time I might not be around in time to help you." he called over his shoulder.

"What about you then? Where are you going?" the woman asked.

"To the hunt. Still plently of those homicidal tosters running around in human skin. So stay safe." he answered before leaping off and out of sight.

"Excalibur," the women muttered to herself as she pulled out her cell phone and entering a number, hating she had to do this to the man that had just rescued her, but knowing Father would be enraged if he wasn't informed "Put me in contact with Dr. Soho."

**With Reina and Shiori:**

Meanwhile, at the NSWF, two people were feeling quite frustrated with an unsuccessful serch that had taken up the whole night and it was now well into the morning.

"So have you found anything out about the man you faced?" Reina asked as she sat behind her desk, looking through records of the great quake.

"No ma'am." Shiori replied as she scaned through records from over the last ten years, "I've searched through everything and found no one at all matching his description."

They were inturrupted by the phone on Reina's desk ringing and she answered it.

"Yes?" Soho said, the began holding the holding the phone to her ear as she took out a paper and pin started to wright down on a sheet of paper, "Excalibur hmmm, Thank you for the information. I'll pass it to Father."

"Dr. Soho," Shiori asked, "Is everything all right?"

"Better then all right," Soho replied with a small smile, "Excalibur is the name of the man that defeated us the other day."

Shiori went wide eyed at that, "Where is he!?" she demanded, slamming both hands on the desk in front of her, "I'll make him pay for…"

"He's already gone from saving one of our sisters," Soho replied calmly as she stood up, interrupting Shiori, "But I must admit, you've never show this much interest in a man before."

Blushing slightly as she stood straight, Shiori stuttered out, "I-I-It's because he defeated me like I was nothing Dr. Soho. That's all!"

"Indeed," Soho muttered as she eyed Shiori, "but now we have a description of him to work with other then his transformation."

Shiori turned back to Soho, interested. "What? He changed back in front of our sister?" she asked, wondering why he'd do such a thing.

"He did it after she mistook him for a cloneblade and he did it to show his blade to her because he wanted to know how she knew what it was. He has wild blond hair, deep azure blue eyes, and the most noticeably, three whiskers-like scars on each cheek."

"Whisker-like scars?" Shiori questioned curiously, blinking.

"Yes," Reina responded as she smirked and entering the information into the computer to try getting a match, "It seemed our sister he rescued found it quite cute and was almost overcome with the urge to pet them."

"Pet them?" Shiori snorted, turning away, "Does she have no pride?"

"Seems not," Soho replied as the information she wanted appeared on her computer screen. "Naruto Uzumaki..." Reina said aloud as Shiori looked towards her from her computer, "Survived the great quake along with two others."

"He was in the Quake?" Shiori questioned, moving next to Reina to look at the screen to see the picture of a seventeen year old. "No records found on any of the three and presumed to be family," Shiori read from the report as she moved back to her own computer.

"Can you find anything on him with just his name?" Reina asked as she looked to her assistant as something catches her attention, "_He was near the center of the quake with the other two survivors...that's interesting."_Reina thought.

"Nothing!" Shiori suddenly yelled, slamming her fist on the desk, snapping Reina back to reality, "There's nothing on him since that report!

"How is that possible?" Reina asked as she crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, "It says he was interviewed by several NWSF agents about the baby, and they've been chasing him all over for the last six years."

"Well, there's nothing on him!" Shiori countered as she turned her screen towards Reina, "It's like he didn't even exist until the day of the quake!"

"Well, this is fascinating," Reina said, eyeing her own monitor, "He was given a medical exam when he the women were rescued."

"What of it?" Shiori questioned turning her screen back towards her.

"I'm sending the information to your terminal now." Reina replied as she typed a few keys.

"No signs of infection...high white blood cell count..." Shiori read out loud before going wide eyed, "Refused to have a physical evaluation."

"Hec acts like he has something to hide, doesn't he?" Reina muttered, taping her index fingers together as she continued to read the report, "And everyone has infections to a certain degree and yet he has none at all."

"What could it mean doctor?" Shiori asked as Reina stood up and turned to the window.

"It means we need a sample of his blood." a voice responded, causing them both to turn to see a man in his sixties walk into the room.

"Father!" Both Shiori and Reina shouted in surprise as they look to the man.

"Hello, Shiori, Reina." Tatsuoki Furumizu said, walking towards the monitor with Naruto's picture, "I see the King has returned to this world."

"Sir?" Shiori questioned, confused, as she looked at Naruto's picture.

"It is said that the hero would return to protect the queen," Father informs them as he looked at the picture of Naruto with intrest, "If the Witchblade is the Queen, then this man is the King and protector of the Witchblade."

That information caused both women's eyes to widen as they look towards Naruto's image.

"Find him and bring him here and the Witchblade will follow," Father told them, looking to them sternly, "I would prefer not to use violence to get him, but if he refuses..."

"Yes sir," Shiori shouted as she bowed her head while Father left. _"I'll get my chance to defeat you yet...Naruto. Uzumaki."_ Shiori thought, reveling tha she now knew who he was. _"And I won't loose this time!"_

_'What do you really want with Uzumaki, Tatsuoki Furumizu?'_ Reina thought, watching the man leave with a look of disgust.

**With Masane and Rihoko:**

"So Dad's working right now?" Rihoko asked as she fliped through apartment ads and magazines.

"Yep," Masane replied as she lied back, "He never did like making someone else pay for everything."

"That's like him," Rihoko said happily, "but wouldn't that keep him away more often? And then we have to remember he gets lost easily in a city."

Masane sat up, wide eyed, "I bet he's lost right now..." she groaned as Rihoko looked at her. "That idiot of ours can find a rabbit in a forest and he gets lost in a city."

"But he's _our_ idiot mom," Rihoko added to Masane and she smiled fondly.

"Yep, that's true," Masane said in agreement as she lied back down.

"Hey mom," Rihoko said as Masane looked over to her, "what's commercial housing?"

"Means they are to be sold for business only," Masane answered just as her cell phone rang, "Hello?" she asked as she answered the phone, "Yes, I'll be there."

Turning to Rihoko, Masane smiled aplogetically, "Sorry honey, got a meeting. I gotta go."

"Alright mom," Rihoko said as she read the booklet of apartments as Masane leaft just as Rihoko saw an ad for Odd jobs, "That's it!" Rihoko shouted happily.

**With Naruto:**

"Err stupid city," Naruto mumbled sleepily as he walked down the sidewalk, looking around, "All the buildings look the same." He muttered, glaring at each building he passed, needless to say having spent the remainder of all last night since his dream...nightmare...whichever it was...running around hunting Ex-Cons had done little for his mood and now that he didn't know where to go in the city was making him rather irratable. Still, he had to confess that Takayama had given him a good reason to do an all-nighter: Naruto and Masane were each paid two million dollars a piece for each Ex-con defeated and that him and Masane weren't on-call at the same time, so supporting his family was easy for Naruto, besides, after that weird dream, he couldn't sleep.

"Excuse me," a women's voice said, getting the blond's attention as he turned to look a dark haired women in a dark purple shirt and skirt with another women with short brown hair dark blue jacket with matching skirt and light blue shirt, both of whom looked fimilar yet he wasn't sure where, "You seem lost."

"Hehe," Naruto snickered, scratching the back of his head as he looked at the two women sheepishly, "Is it that obvious?"

"Kind of," the other women said, eyeing him as though sizing him up for a fight, _"He's lost; this is the guy that beat me...wondering around in the middle of the city as if he were some damned tourest!"_

"I'm Reina Soho," the dark-haired women introduced herself as she gestured to her brown-haired companion, "and this is Shiori Tsuzuki."

"Hi," Shiori greeted calmly, thought her fists were clenched and shaking, a detail that didn't escape Naruto's noticed.

"You two look familiar for some reason," Naruto said, eyeing the two carefully with his arms crossed, "Have we met before?"

_"He doesn't remember?!"_ Shiori mentally shouted angrily as she clenched her fists tighter, trying to act sweet despite the growing urge to throttle the blond male, "No I don't believe so Mr.…"

"Naruto," Naruto said as he gave the two a grin, "Naruto Uzumaki Amaha."

"It's nice to meet you Mr..." Reina tried to say before being cut off as he raised a hand.

"Just Naruto is fine," Naruto told them calmly as he looked towards the sky, _"They're hiding their intentions well... well except for Shiori, she seems angry with me for something."_

"Well Naruto," Reina said calmly as she eyed the blond, _'Does he know something else is going here?'_ she wondered, "Is there anyway we can help you?" she asked, eyeing Shiori warningly, as her assistant struggeled to remain calm.

"No not really." Naruto replied as he turned away and started walking, "It was nice meeting the two of you, but I've really got to get home."

"Maybe we can..." Reina tried to offer before he went around the corner, "Shiori, let's follow him."

"Yes Ma'am," Shiori said in agreement as they started moving after him.

An hour later in a vast park, Naruto rolled his eyes "_Seems I have a fan club forming...Man do they suck at tailing people..."_ he thought to himself as he glanced behind him to see Shiori and Reina keeping a good distance from him, _"Masane is better at following people then them."_

Entering a clearing, Naruto could only give a smirk as the two women follow him in their high-heeled shoes as he ended his track up the small rocky hill in the park.

"Must hurt to walk so much in those heels. So...you two are that up for a little talk?" Naruto asked as he turned to see Shiori and Reina walk into the clearing, looking at him, or in Shiori's case, glaring up at him murderously.

"You knew we were following you?!" Shiori shouted, annoyed as she eyed Naruto, seeing the blond yawn.

"How long?" Reina asked calmly as Naruto just smirked before scratching his nose innocently.

"My daughter has better stealth," Naruto answered as he crossed his arms in front of him with a smirk as he mentally counted the near-bursting veins in Shiori's head that he could see all the way from where he was standing, "but to answer your question, it was when you started following me, the clicking of your heels made a unique sound, the sent of her perfume," Naruto said, gesturing to Shiori, "and then the power radiating from those bracelets of yours is quiet noticeable as well. So I gave you a little tour of the hardest path here."

"Interesting since we had several people around us." Reina said.

Shiori looked ready to explode as she raised her bracelet on her wrist with the blue gem shining, "First you humiliate me in battle!" she shouted as she transformed to her battle form.

"...then you insult me with all this running around!"

Naruto just smiled at her as he scratched the back of his head.

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" She cried as she charged as Naruto transformed. She brought her crescent blade down on him and cackled as the impact kicked up dust and left a crater with cracks spider webing from it, then stopped, dumbfounded at the lack of remains. He hadn't even moved while she was charging at him! She heard a whooping laugh from up in a tree nearby and looked up to see her target without a mark on him. Clearly having dodged at the last second.

"Too slow, Sweet Cheeks." he laughed, calling her that name again to work her up more. In his mind, bits and pieces of memories floated to the surface. It was still hard to remember his times when Excalibur took control. But it was still there. He did remember her. They'd fought. He just didn't remember it until she had exposed her cloneblade's bracelet form to him.

"GET DOWN HERE SO I CAN GUT YOU!" Shiori roared.

"Sheesh...what's with the grudge?" Naruto asked, raising an eyebrow at Reina, who was clearly the more reasonable of the two right now.

"You don't remember?" she asked incredulously.

"So sue me, it's a bit hard to recall the first transformation with Excalibur...he was focused on finding and protecting the Witchblade at the time and so we, that is Excalibur and I, had more on our minds than fighting you two. Why do you think I asked you both to get out of our way so we could get back to fulfilling that obligation? The Cloneblades you two had felt similar to the Witchblade, that's what brought you to our attention. When we found out you didn't know where she was, we lost intrest and would have gone our way immedatly if you hadn't attacked us." Naruto spoke up.

Reina nodded, "Fair enough. Though we are the Witchblade's rightful owners so..." she stopped when she saw Naruto shaking his head.

"That mindset is part of the problem: Your trying to take ownership of something that has existed as long as humans, if not longer. Something that's sentient enough to choose an owner of its own accord." Naruto said.

Reina looked at Naruto in shock before repeating what he said, "Sentient?"

"You can't possibility think that it isn't sentient right," Naruto asked as he dodged Shiori's wild, enraged attacks "The Witchblade choses its own wielder and reject all others right, so how does it do it? At random? Luck of the draw? Or some kind of blood connection? The answer to that is no. It chooses as it sees fit." he said.

"And how do you know all this?" Reina asked with intrest.

Naruto held up his wrist with the yellow gem in it for Reina to see as he danced around Shiori's attacks before answering, "These things have a knack for guiding their weilders to the killing blow rather easily," he told her as he lowered his arm, "So it has to be capable of thinking in order to be able to analyze an opponent and find a weakspot."

"How do you know it's not a fluke?" Reina asked, the scientist in her coming to the forfront of her personality. She wasn't against learning new things, far from it. She knew the power of cultivated knowledge. And Naruto was willingly sharing more information with her about the Witchblade then years of analysis on it by Doji Group Industries and NSWF combind had ever given.

"To answer your question, it's quite simple: raw instinct. This is something that all humans have but don't use."

"So what?" Reina asked, crossing her arms, briefly admiering Naruto's skill at multitasking in having this scientific debate with her while in mid-battle with Shiori as she attempted to remove his head. "If we all have it, the Witchblade might activate it just so we can fight better."

"True," Naruto replied, blocking Shiori with a blade of his own that came out of his wrist as she jumped at him. "But something would have to awaken that instinct for battle."

"It's possible," Reina admitted with a shrug, "It would explain the Witchblade and Excalibur's ability to sense threats near by."

"Yes. But by their very natures, Excalibur and Witchblade aren't ment to be understood by sicence, much less artifically copied by it. Never forget that your blades, the cloneblade, as I've heard they're called, are just copies of the Witchblade, which has greater potential than the imitations. They have limits that I can't sense in the original." he told Reina as he pushed Shiori back and away without looking, " So who knows what the prolonged exposure to the Witchblade will do to you as a result."

Reina nodded...she knew her colleague, Dr. Rie Nishida, the amoral chief researcher of the NSWF who was extremely obsessed with researching the capabilities of the Witchblade and cared little for any laws and restrictions that would be placed on her experiments, wouldn't take kindly to that news. But that was a bonus as far as Reina saw things.

Naruto left Reina be to mull over their short discussionand turrned his full attention to Shiori, and lept out of the way. "Gah! Don't do that!" Naruto cried, blushing as he dodged the way of an ax kick Shiori aimed at his head.

"Why not? My blade attacks aren't working so I went with a kick." Shiori snapped.

"In _that_ outfit? Sorry Sweet cheeks, but like I told you before: you're practically naked right now and I'm not a pervert. Dominatrix cyber battle armor with a built-in mini-skirt-and-bikini theme do NOT mix with kick attacks if you're aiming for decency!" Naruto snapped back.

Shiori looked down at herself, taking in her armor's design before she looked up, glaring at Naruto as she saw his piont, blushing so bad that she was sure she shouldn't have blood flowing to her brain or heart, the fact that her blood had been changed to oxycyte making it hard to tell if she was blushing or paling.

**"DIE YOU DAMN PERVERT!" **She roared.

Naruto groaned. How was pointing out that obvious fact the deed of a pervert? And he was married and had a daughter anyways. So if he had any indecent qualities before the quake, he'd forsake them if he had remembered them.

Reina rolled her eyes. Was Shiori just turning anything and everything into an excuse to try killing him?

"I'll deal with her if you'd be so kind as to see to it she's returned to the most reasonable level possible." Reina said.

Naruto nodded as he caught Shiroi's wrist, halting her latest attack and then promptly headbutted her, knocking the enraged woman out cold and she fell in a heap.

"Sorry about this." Naruto said as Reina picked up Shiori.

"Not at all, Naruto. My thanks for the information on the topic of our conversation and I would like to aplogize on Shiori's behalf. But still...was that last move you used on her really necessary?"

Naruto shrugged "Maybe not. Still...there's no way to undo the past and I, for one, was in no mood to strangle infents that haven't even left their mother's whomb as far as her combat abilities went. She's lucky to be alive if how she took me on that night we first met was how she usually fought Ex-cons. Well...good day, Ms. Reina." the blond said as he changed back and Reina left, giving him a polight nod before spinning on his heel and walking away.

* * *

"Well your mother's busy working today," Naruto said as he and Rihoko finish a bowl of ice cream, "So we should really be look for a place of our own while she's doing that."

"I know," Rihoko muttered looking through several ads for apartments, "But there's nothing we can afford, even with both of you working."

"Hmmm," Naruto thinks tapping his chin as the spoon he had been using scraps the bottom of the bowl.

"We're out of ice cream?" Naruto asked Rihoko, who just sighed.

"Sometimes I really wonder who the child in this family is really," Rihoko mumbles before feeling something tickle her stomach sending her to the bed laughing.

"What was that Rihoko?" Naruto asked as he tickles Rihoko, who can't help but laugh.

"Stop it Dad," Rihoko laughs out before they hear a grumble from somewhere. Blinking a few times, Naruto sighed, as Rihoko laughed harder. "Dad's stomach's louder then Mom's." Rihoko whooped.

"Alright then," Naruto shouted, standing as he pointed to the door, "Onward to lunch."

"Can we go back to the café?" Rihoko asked as Naruto looked towards his daughter with a smile.

"As long as I can have ramen," Naruto counters causing the girl to scowl as her father.

"But mom said..." Rihoko tried to argue, just as Naruto gives her a pleading look, "Alright fine."

Shiori skids to a stop in her dark blue car as she looks around. _'He's here,'_ Shiori thinks as she parks her car and steps out, _'But where?'_

_'I leave for one hour,'_ Masane tells herself as walks down the street, _'and somehow he talks Rihoko into taking him for ramen.'_ She then turns the corner walking past Shiori as she does. _'There's only one place he they would go.'_

_'She's the women that was saved with Naruto,'_ Shiori thinks as she watches Masane stalk off, _'If I follow her...'_

**With Naruto and Rihoko:**

"So you've already sold it," Rihoko asked Mariko, who looks annoyed.

"Yes that's right," Mariko shouts angrily glaring at the child, as Naruto finishes off another bowl of ramen with a smirk.

_'She's got her.'_ Naruto thought, mentally patting himself on the back, _'I taught her well.'_

"NARUTO!" a voice shouts angrily as Naruto goes pale with several noodles hanging from as he slowly turns to see Masane glaring at him from the door, "I told you no more ramen." she shouts as she stomped towards him.

Shiori sneaked in, looking first shocked then amused as she watched Naruto get scolded like a child. "But Masane..." Naruto pleaded before seeing a fimilir, superbly well-dressed, short-haired brunette woman in a suit-skirt combination. "Shiori!" he said, changing topics, causing Rihoko and Masane to look at the newcomer.

"What?" Shiori asked as Naruto walked over to her.

"How are you doing?" He asked her as Shiori, Masane, and Rihoko look confused, "Oh let me introduce my wife Masane here, and my daughter Rihoko." Gestureing towards each in turn as he introduced them.

"Hello." Rihoko greeted with a wave as Masane did the same.

"So Sweetie," Masane questioned, walking over with a look on her face that made Naruto sweat, "Who is this?"

"This is Shiori Tsuzuki," Naruto said.

"And how exactly did you meet her?" Masane questioned as Naruto nervously eyed the Witchblade, which had started to glow a light red.

"When I was apartment hunting the other day," Naruto lied with a small smile as he leaned near Shiori's ear. "Play along and I'll give you a rematch anytime anywhere," he whispered in her ear. "She told me about some nice ones but they were not looking for tenants."

Shiori could only smirk as she nodded in agreement. "Yeah it was quite unfortunate for Naru here," Shiori said aloud, getting a glare from Masane and a disbelieving look from Naruto. "Wish I could have been of more help to him." _'You're SO going to regret this Uzumaki Muhahahahah!'_ Shiori thought with wicked delight.

"So what are you doing here now?" Masane asked, fist clenched as Shiori wrapped an arm around Naruto's waist.

"Saw him as I was passing by and thought I'd check to see how the apartment hunting is going," Shiori answered as Naruto twitched.

"Oh? And how has it gone?" Masane asked, glaring at Naruto, who tried to find away out.

_'I wonder if falling face forward onto the ground right now is enough to kill me?'_ Naruto asked himself, looking anywhere but at Masane.

"We're going to live here." Rihoko shouted happily, as everyone looks towards her and Mariko.

"What are talking about?" Mariko shouted, "The room was rented to a company called 'Odd Job Amaha,'" she told them as Rihoko smirked.

"That's odd," Masane said, getting everyone's attentions, "That's our name."

Mariko blinked as Naruto walked over to Rihoko, patting on her the head. "I am so proud of your use of deception," Naruto told Rihoko, who just smiled at him.

"Deception?" Masane and Mariko shout, wide eyed.

"Yeah," Rihoko told them as she sliped off her stool, "We're odd Job Amaha," Rihoko told them happily, "And Dad liked the name so well that we decided on it."

"Then Rihoko called the agency in charge of property," Naruto added with a smile as he picked up Rihoko.

"And then I got them to approve of it," Rihoko finished as Masane, Shiori, and Mariko can only stare.

"Naruto..." Masane growled after a few minutes as Naruto slowly backed away, "You're a bad influence on our daughter!" she shouted, grabbing Naruto by the ear and dragging him back to the center of the room. Shiori could only stifle her laughter. "Do you think I'll let you get away with what you taught Rihoko?"

"Help me!" Naruto pleased with someone...anyone...as everyone just shook their heads, as Shiori placed a hand on the table to prevent herself from falling over thanks to laughing so. "Oh you all suck so much!" Naruto shouted as Masane dragged him outside by his ear.

"Rihoko, was it?" Shiori asked as Rihoko looked to Shiori to see her writing something down on a piece of paper, "Give this to your dad if he survives."

"Alright," Rihoko replied taking the small letter from Shiori who can only stifle her laughter further as she looked out the front window to see Naruto lying on the ground with a giant lump on his head.

"Later Rihoko." Shiori called with a wave as she walked out the door, laughing at Naruto as she walked by. Ah...this was a good day!

"Bye Auntie Shiori." Rihoko shouted, getting Shiori to look back with a small smile.


End file.
